A LNG terminal under construction in Louisiana could be expanded to send out 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day — the same volume that the proposed pipeline from the Alaska North Slope could deliver to the Lower 48. The expansion request came just as the new energy bill passed by Congress gave federal regulators sole power over LNG terminal siting.
Cheniere Energy Inc. already is planning to make Sabine Pass one of the nation’s largest import terminals for liquefied natural gas. But the company asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission July 29 to allow its expansion from the currently permitted 2.6 billion cubic feet each day.
Cost for the original development is estimated at $800 million, with first cargoes arriving in 2008. The expansion could be on line just a year or two later.
Customers ready
Cheniere, of Houston, already has lined up customers for two-thirds of the initial capacity at the site along the state line in Cameron Parish, near Lake Charles. Total has reserved a billion cubic feet daily for 20 years. Chevron is taking 700 million cubic feet each day, also for two decades, with an option to increase that total to 1 billion cubic feet. The option expires Dec. 1.
Expansion involves adding three new tanks to double storage capacity at the site to the equivalent of 20 billion cubic feet of gas. The expansion would also add regasification capacity to allow the full throughput. Two unloading docks are in the original plans.
The permitting process for the expansion could take as long as a year, according to Keith Meyer, president of Cheniere LNG. “We expect it to go very smoothly, in large part because of the work that was done on the base facility,” he told The Associated Press.
Construction began in March on the 568-acre Sabine Pass site. The terminal received federal authorization in December. Cheniere is also involved in three other LNG terminal proposals on the Gulf Coast, one in Louisiana’s Cameron Parish and two in Texas.
Industry web
Another terminal, this one backed by San Diego’s Sempra Energy, is set to begin construction nearby in just a couple of months. The go-ahead announcement Aug. 1 came as Italy's Eni signed an agreement with Sempra LNG to take 600 million cubic feet of gas daily from the proposed $500 million Cameron terminal, expected to start with a daily send-out capacity of 1.5 billion cubic feet.
The Cameron site is near Hackberry, about 15 miles south of Lake Charles. It, like its Sabine Pass neighbor, will be near the strategic Henry Hub and the web of industry infrastructure along the Louisiana-Texas border. Huge pipelines fan out from the hub to markets in the Midwest, Southeast, Atlantic Coast and Northeast.
Lake Charles itself already has an operating LNG terminal with a billion cubic feet of daily capacity, and an increase to 2.1 billion cubic feet has been approved by FERC.
Northeast snafu
While companies have been powering ahead on LNG terminals in the industry-friendly Gulf Coast region, a battle over river access for a proposed BP terminal in New Jersey appears to be heading for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Acting New Jersey Gov. Richard J. Codey ordered the state attorney general on July 28 to go to the high court to challenge Delaware’s denial of a permit for the pier planned on the New Jersey side by BP subsidiary Crown Landing LLC. New Jersey has even offered to build the pier for $50 million to $100 million, then lease it to BP.
But Delaware says a boundary designation that goes back to the seventeenth century gives that state control of the Delaware River all the way to the New Jersey bank. And Delaware’s environmental regulators have refused to issue a permit for the pier.
The BP terminal has a proposed capacity of 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas.
