Book on BHP Billiton’s Cabrillo Port Is Now Officially Closed

• Total Cost of Effort Still Not Known •

BY HANS LAETZ

In an anticlimactic footnote to the biggest environmental fight on the Malibu coast in recent years, the U.S. Maritime Administrator last week formally declared Cabrillo Port dead.

Sean Connaughton signed papers in Washington that were released Monday, formally denying BHP Billiton’s request to anchor a floating liquefied natural gas terminal 13.8 miles off the Malibu coast.

The federal finding formally ends the process that started with the company’s formal application on Jan. 17, 2004, and churned through tens of millions of dollars in engineering costs, environmental studies and evaluation costs.

A stack of environmental documents from the three-year process is over two feet high. BHP Billiton will not disclose how much the effort actually cost.

Most of the costs were shouldered by BHP, the world’s largest mining company with a market value of $118 billion and $10 billion in profits last year. The city of Malibu paid $50,000 to help the California Coastal Protection Network fight the project.

The Australian company has refused to give up the ghost, and has not closed its Oxnard office. A spokesperson in Houston said the fate of its 4-6 local employees has not been determined.