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Another East Coast LNG port proposed
In another effort to bring natural gas from abroad into the big East Coast market, a major utility is exploring the option of building an LNG terminal on a former shipyard site east of Baltimore, company officials have told the Baltimore Sun and other publications.
AES Corp. plans to spend $400 million on a terminal and storage tanks at the former Sparrows Point shipyard in Dundalk, Md. The terminal could import and regasify 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas daily. The gas would be sent out via a new 85-mile pipeline to a distribution center near Philadelphia, where it would go into the existing networks.
The corporation has yet to file an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but has been meeting with local officials, according to the Sun and the Dundalk Eagle newspaper.
“Sparrows Point is an ideal location for (AES),” Linda McCarty, a spokeswoman for AES, told the Eagle. “It has the best combination of attributes. There’s no residential property around for over a mile, and the deepwater port was important, too.” Maryland already has Cove Point Maryland is already home to the operating Cove Point LNG terminal, run by Dominion Resources Inc. But other proposals for LNG terminals in the East have hit roadblocks despite being in industrial areas.
A BP proposal for a terminal on the New Jersey side of the nearby Delaware River has run up against opposition from Delaware, which claims jurisdiction of the river right up to the New Jersey shore. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear that case, but meanwhile the project is stalled.
AES has a 99-year lease option on 60 acres at Sparrows Point. AES, based in Arlington, Va., has annual revenues of about $10 billion and a market capitalization of nearly $11 billion. If the terminal is approved by FERC, it could be in operation by 2010.
—Allen Baker
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