Three More SoCal LNG Projects Work Their
Way through System
The apparent scuttling of the proposed BHP
Billiton ship off Malibu’s northern end does not end the local concern about liquefied
natural gas terminals in nearby waters.
Another Australian energy firm, Woodside,
is expected to file its application soon to locate an LNG
terminal 22 miles south of Point Dume. And two other companies
are poised to apply for offshore LNG regasification projects
near Oxnard and Long Beach.
The lead agency handling the Woodside
application will be the City of Los Angeles, because its
natural gas pipeline would come ashore near Los Angeles
International Airport. That means the L.A. City Council
will have veto power on the project that is being marketed as
OceanWay.
There are several key differences between
the Woodside and Billiton proposals, and company officials have
said they watched Cabrillo Port’s opponents and tried to
design a project that environmentalists may find more
acceptable.
OceanWay, unlike Cabrillo Port, would use
outside air to warm the cryogenically chilled LNG. Woodside
officials say that will eliminate 90 percent of the smog that
the BHP project would have generated, and would also eliminate
the floating aircraft-carrier-sized terminal that would have
been stationed off the Malibu coast for up to 40 years.
OceanWay would use a permanent submerged
buoy that would rise up to access LNG carriers from below, and
regasify the liquid on board the transit vessels.
Woodside officials say that OceanWay would
be located 22 miles off the nearest mainland, at Point Dume,
and about 20 miles from Catalina Island. The curvature of the
earth would obscure the LNG carriers from all but high
elevations in Malibu.
Of more concern to Ventura County
residents, Northern Star Natural Gas is also readying its
application to convert a 40-year-old oil-drilling platform into
an LNG terminal. That company also plans to use ambient air
regasification, to lessen the smog impact as compared to
Cabrillo.
But environmental activists note the oil
rig project, being marketed as “Clearwater Port,”
is just 12.6 miles off the beachfront houses at Oxnard, and add
that a new Congressional study places into doubt existing
computer projections about the impact of an LNG fire on open
water.
A third project, proposed by Tidelands
Natural Gas of Texas, would locate a submerged buoy similar to
the Woodside project somewhere offshore San Pedro.
All of these proposals need environmental
review, and BHP Billiton went through four years of study,
hearings and controversy before a decision was reached.
In the meantime, momentum may be
building in the California Legislature for a comparative
licensing procedure that would also assess whether the
state really needs more imported fossil fuels.
State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, has
said that this year’s bill will be more thorough than one
that almost passed last year.
