Source:  CG News

http://coastguardnews.com/coast-guard-responds-to-a-lng-tank-ship-aground-near-guayanilla-puerto-rico/2009/12/15/

Coast Guard responds to LNG tank ship aground near Guayanilla, Puerto Rico

Dec 15th, 2009

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Coast Guard Marine Investigators are investigating the cause that led to the grounding of the 920-foot double-hulled Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tank ship Matthew Tuesday.

The Norwegian flag tank ship grounded at 6 15 a.m. and was later refloated Tuesday morning, approximately a half nautical mile southeast of Cayo Caribe near Guayanilla, Puerto Rico. There are no reports or sightings of pollution at this time.

The vessel was later refloated when the tank ship crew transferred cargo from the vessel’s forward to its aft cargo tanks allowing the vessel to successfully float free. The Matthew is now moored at the Eco Electrica facility, where underwater hull integrity assessments are scheduled to be conducted by contract divers.

Sector San Juan Coast Guard command center controllers were alerted Tuesday morning after receiving a report that the vessel had grounded onto rocks during their inbound transit to Guayanilla.

Coast Guard marine inspectors and pollution investigators from Regional Inspection Office Ponce and Sector San Juan are providing support on scene. Coast Guard controllers launched an Air Station Borinquen, Puerto Rico, HH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew to assist.

Source:  Fox 10 TV (Mobile, Alabama; Pensacola, Florida; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida)

http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/Redesigned-LNG-terminal-proposed

Redesigned LNG terminal proposed

Updated: Wednesday, 09 Dec 2009, 11:00 PM CST
Published : Wednesday, 09 Dec 2009, 10:40 PM CST

·         Hal Scheurich

·         Mike Jernigan

MOBILE, Ala. - The first public meeting for a proposed "closed loop” liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility was held Wednesday night in Mobile.

The meeting, held at the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center, was to allow the public to voice any concerns they may have to the Coast Guard and view documents on the proposed Bienville Offshore Energy Terminal.

Houston based TORP Technology went back to the drawing board on the design after meeting stiff opposition to their initial “open loop” plan. TORP CEO Joe Berno said that tens of thousands of man hours and redesign went into the new proposal.

“Ultimately, we were able to come back with a closed loop design which required a complete redesign of the support facility and the technologies involved. About the only consistent component is the HiLoad docking system itself,” said Berno.

Liquefied natural gas is shipped at extremely cold temperatures and requires warming to be returned to a gaseous form. The proposed facility would primarily use warm air rather than millions of gallons of sea water for this process.

Casi Callaway of Mobile Baykeeper said their group has given the green light.

“There are air emissions. There are minimal water discharges but when you compare 130 million gallons of ocean water a day being used through this facility to the minuscule amount there will be now, really, our concerns have been alleviated,” said Callaway.

The floating facility would be located 63 miles off of Dauphin Island in over 400 ft. of water. But the really big number is $20 million, the annual dollars TORP expects the facility to contribute to the Mobile area.

“We would directly hire about 57 employees to work on our facilities, Our vessels offshore and in addition to that, there would be other employment opportunities for service companies or companies that are providing materials and supplies to us,” said Berno.

While this proposal is much more widely accepted than the open loop system, there are those who are still on the fence.

Chester McConnell represents the 800 members of the Mobile Audubon Society.

“While this is good for the short term, in providing gas for the short term, we hope that it’s not going to interfere with the direction that we need to go in supporting wind and solar and other types of energy,” McConnell said.

There will be one more open public hearing when the final proposal is released in early January.

Anyone who would like input on the proposal can do so online until December 20. Go to www.regulations.gov and reference docket number USCG-2006-24644.

Source: Boston Herald

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/20091209lng_plant_underused_competitor_says_new_offshore_setup_lacks_business_plan/srvc=home&position=also

LNG site underused

Competitor says offshore gas hookup lacks business plan

By Jay Fitzgerald
Wednesday, December 9, 2009

An LNG facility off the coast of Gloucester has been sitting largely idle since it opened for business nearly two years ago, prompting a rival to say its business model isn’t working.

Excelerate Energy’s $350 million “Northeast Gateway” buoy-system was supposed to transform how liquefied natural gas is delivered in the post-9/11 era in Massachusetts.

Proponents hailed Excelerate’s off-shore unloading buoys, located about 13 miles out to sea from Gloucester, as a safer option to huge LNG tankers steaming through Boston Harbor, past densely packed neighborhoods, to a natural-gas storage facility in Everett.

But since the Excelerate buoy system opened in February 2008, only about three LNG tankers have pulled up to the Excelerate buoys - and one of those ships was empty and used for purely ceremonial purposes when the system was commissioned 22 months ago.

Hess LNG, the giant energy company pushing to build a new LNG facility in Fall River, is pointing to the inactivity at the Excelerate off-shore buoy as evidence that land-based LNG storage sites are needed.

“So far, it hasn’t been working,” Jim Grasso, a spokesman for the Hess, said of the off-shore Gloucester venture. “You have to have a good supply and a good business model that works.”

Doug Pizzi, an Excelerate spokesman, shot back that the demand and prices for liquefied natural gas have fallen since the recession took hold - and Excelerate is convinced its system will work.

“We’re very confident in the business model for the Northeast Gateway - or we wouldn’t have built it,” said Pizzi. “Time will prove us correct.”

One energy analyst, who asked not to be named, said Excelerate has a point about current market conditions not being good for any new LNG venture. But he added that Excelerate is having problems locking up big-name energy companies to supply gas for its operations.

Suez LNG, which owns the Distrigas LNG facility in Everett, is pushing ahead with its own plan to open an off-shore LNG docking system similar to Excelerate’s buoy operation next year. Ships would dock at a buoy and pump their gaseous cargo into a vast underwater pipeline system and then into land-based pipes - without ships ever touching land.

But Suez also plans to keep making deliveries through Boston Harbor, which currently sees about one LNG tanker steaming past neighborhoods each week.

Source:  Post Telegram (Long Beach, CA)

http://www.presstelegram.com/opinions/ci_13963723

Thomas Elias: The Russians are trying to foist LNG on us

Posted: 12/09/2009 07:41:22 PM PST

For much of the last three decades, California companies like Sempra Energy and Pacific Gas & Electric have tried to foist expensive, environmentally questionable liquefied natural gas onto this state's consumers. Then came a big Australian energy firm, whose expensive effort to build an LNG receiving plant off the Ventura County coast failed more than two years ago.

Now it's the Russians, specifically the partially state-owned natural gas giant Gazprom, who want both to increase California utility bills and make America more dependent than ever on foreign energy.

In the past, efforts to import LNG to California failed in part because their sponsors sought to build receiving facilities inside the state, efforts thwarted by agencies as different as Indian tribes and the state Lands Commission. The timing seemingly could not be worse for LNG now, as the current glut of domestic natural gas is so great that operators of one big Texas LNG receiving facility have begun re-exporting their supplies to countries that do have a need.

LNG is natural gas supercooled to a subfreezing liquid and shipped across oceans in quarter-mile-long cryogenic tankers, then rewarmed and placed into existing pipelines.

Always, there is big money behind the efforts to bring LNG to California, which means they can never be taken lightly, no matter how unneeded LNG may be.

How unneeded is it today in this state? Totally, unless the state Public Utilities Commission votes to give up even more of the domestic gas supplies that now flow to California from places like Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado. So far, the PUC under the leadership of former utility company executive Michael Peevey has voted to release one-fourth of the space California now reserves on two major pipelines. If that move ever becomes reality - and it can only happen if LNG replaces current gas supplies - domestic gas now used here would go instead to the Northeast and Midwest.

Repayment of corporate investments in building tankers, liquefying plants and receiving terminals is always included in the price of LNG, almost invariably making it more expensive than pipelined domestic supplies.

LNG is unneeded today by everyone except those who invest in it because existing domestic gas supplies are adequate to serve American needs for the next 100 years, there is a current surplus and because demand for gas actually declined slightly in California over the last 10 years, despite population growth. This was due in part to the advent of energy-efficient appliances.

Gazprom, which controls 17 percent of the world's known natural gas reserves, doesn't care about any of that. "Our goal is to expand into all North American markets," John Hattenberger, head of Gazprom's Houston-based U.S. marketing and energy-trading wing, told a newspaper in Ft. Worth, Texas, the other day.

Gazprom already has a foot in California's door: It supplies some of the LNG going to the Sempra-operated receiving plant in Baja California, Mexico. As might be expected, part of that gas has been approved for sale to customers of another Sempra-owned company, San Diego Gas & Electric.

Gazprom liquefies this gas on the island of Sakhalin, just north of Japan. It also will produce LNG at Shtokman, on the Barents Sea coast of Siberia.

Two very logical destinations for much of that gas are the LNG facilities now proposed at Coos Bay and Astoria, Ore.

Both are well into their planning and permitting phases, with the Oregon Public Utilities Commission estimating about three-fourths of all gas they handle would end up in California. That could easily happen if pipelines of 100 miles or less are built from the two Oregon coast locations to an existing line that now carries gas from fields in Canada to PG&E customers.

As with the Gazprom contract to supply Sempra's plant at Costa Azul, Mexico, California authorities would have little to say about all this. The state Lands Commission, which blocked the Ventura County LNG plan by refusing to allow a pipeline to run across state-owned tidelands, would be out of the picture. The Chumash Indians, who blocked an earlier LNG effort at Point Conception in Santa Barbara County on religious grounds, would not be involved.

In short, only the PUC would have a voice, and it has rubber-stamped every LNG proposal it's seen over the last 30 years, always predicting gas shortages that never materialized.

Thomas D. Elias is a syndicated columnist who covers California issues (e-mail: tdelias@...). For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

Source:  Upper Rogue Independent (Oregon)

http://urindependent.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2445:citizens-and-attorney-meet-over-pipeline-&catid=13:local&Itemid=35

Source: Oil and Gas Journal

http://www.ogj.com/index/article-display/2196236934/articles/oil-gas-journal/transportation-2/lng/2009/12/ferc-approves_pipeline.html

FERC approves pipeline for LNG terminal off Florida

Dec 7, 2009

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Dec. 7 -- The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved construction of an onshore pipeline to connect with the proposed Port Dolphin deepwater LNG port off western Florida.

Construction is to begin in 2012 with completion in 2013. The terminal would lie 28 miles off Tampa Bay and, with LNG carriers especially designed to regasify LNG, deliver natural gas through a subsea pipeline into the state's pipeline system 4 miles inland from Port Manatee.

Port Dolphin will have peak sendout capacity of up to 1.2 bcfd, said the company’s announcement, enough to power more than 1 million homes. At full operation, the terminal can meet 15% of Florida's projected gas demand, it said.

The FERC order follows approval last month of the Port Dolphin terminal project by the US Maritime Administration and US Coast Guard (OGJ Online, Nov. 3, 2008). And that action followed formal approval of the proposed project in September by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

Port Dolphin is a subsidiary of Hoegh LNG, which operates a fleet of five LNG carriers, including a recently added shuttle and regasification vessel. In addition to transporting LNG, these vessels act as floating terminals while delivering gas to markets.

Hoegh said it is developing several deepwater LNG terminals based on SRV/floating storage and regasification unit technology (OGJ, July 27, 2009, p. 33).

From the web site of the Providence Journal (Rhode Island):

http://www.projo.com/news/environment/content/SAVE_THE_BAY_LNG_11-28-09_V0GJT98_v8.3461989.html

Save The Bay plans campaign to block LNG

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, November 28, 2009

By C. Eugene Emery Jr.

Journal Staff Writer

Save The Bay is poised to begin a high-profile campaign to rally Rhode Islanders against a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal proposed for Mount Hope Bay.

The $12,000-effort will feature advertisements on radio, in Newport and Jamestown newspapers and on billboards on Routes 195 and 24.

The subject of the protest is a plan by Weaver’s Cove Energy, co-owned by Poten & Partners and Amerada Hess Corp., to build a $700-million offloading facility in the middle of the Mount Hope Bay. The company says it would bring cheaper energy to the region.

But its effects would also reverberate to Narragansett Bay where the passage of LNG supertankers would require dredging and, beginning in 2015, temporary bans on boating along the passage between Newport and Jamestown, and periodic closures of the Mount Hope and Pell bridges.

The radio ads feature a cascade of voices that contend that the project will be bad for business and tourism, and express disbelief about “tanker security zones that disrupt boaters and fishermen 140 times a year without warning.”

“We’ve fought for years and spent millions for preserving Mount Hope Bay. For this?” one man says.

George “Ted” Gehrig, president of Weaver’s Cove, reacted to the campaign Friday night by saying that the regulatory process for approving the project is designed to protect the public “and it should be allowed to work. We’d love to sit down with Save The Bay and discuss the issues and talk about the facts.”

The Save The Bay campaign comes five weeks after the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Management Council lost its chance to rule on the project because it waited too long to hold hearings, instead demanding information from Weaver’s Cove that the company was not required to provide.

That decision “certainly was a wake-up call for a lot of people. It has been characterized as de facto approval by the State of Rhode Island, and it was something people were quite shocked to hear,” said Save The Bay spokesman John Martin.

Save The Bay has been warning about the project for years. The new campaign is being inaugurated because an environmental impact statement on the project is expected to be released in December, said Jonathan Stone, the organization’s executive director.

In addition, federal hearings on the proposal, before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), could begin as early as February.

“FERC, by statute, has a public comment period that typically falls within 60 days of the release of the draft environmental impact statement. It’s very important that we turn out a strong public showing at those hearings, and we want to be sure the public is well-informed prior to that,” said Stone.

“A strong public showing is one of the ways the LNG proposal could be stopped,” said Martin.

On June 30, 2005, FERC approved an earlier version of the Weaver’s Cove project for Fall River that also would have disrupted ship and vehicle traffic in Rhode Island.

As part of the effort to thwart the new version of the plan, Save The Bay’s Web site, www.SaveBay.org, has been transformed into an action center for people opposed to the project.

“What we hear back [from the public] is what do we do? Now, we’re ready to provide tools on our Web site to circulate petitions and to send e-mail or regular mail to the congressional delegation,” said Martin.

“Now that we’ve finally begun to restore Mount Hope Bay from decades of abuse from sewage and power plants,” one portion of the Web site says, “Hess wants to take it away from the public and pollute it with a massive LNG platform. We can’t let that happen.”

“The reality is, we have to do something,” Stone said.

In the case of the coastal council, “CRMC elected a legal strategy that, with hindsight, proved to be ineffective,” he said. As a result, “Rhode Island has lost an important tool in fighting the project.”

Source:  http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/11/federal_fish_biologists_questi.html

Federal fish biologists question Columbia River LNG project

By Scott Learn, The Oregonian

November 21, 2009, 7:00AM

The National Marine Fisheries Service submitted a lengthy list of questions and concerns about the proposed Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas terminal this week, posing additional hurdles for the Columbia River project.

Bradwood Landing, proposed by Houston-based NorthernStar Natural Gas, is one of three LNG terminals proposed for Oregon. It would sit next to the Columbia at mile 38, between Astoria and Clatskanie. NorthernStar notes the area is zoned marine-industrial and once held a sawmill; opponents say it's prime salmon habitat.

NMFS sent the letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has conditionally approved the terminal. The letter includes comments on the biological assessment for the project. NMFS has to issue a favorable biological opinion of that assessment for the terminal to proceed.

The 35-page letter asks for additional information and raises concerns about the project's effects on fish and the likelihood of NorthernStar's proposed mitigation, which includes restoring fish habitat elsewhere.

Among other points, the agency said NorthernStar used "an unusual technique" to determine the terminal's effect on species and habitat, and "somewhat mysteriously" generated conclusions about the effects.

"Please revise the analysis to better articulate the logic path used for arriving at the determination," the letter says.

NorthernStar is already facing potential delays related to a required permit from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. And opponents believe the terminal's environmental challenges, including dredging and structures needed in the river, will end up killing the project.

Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, which opposes the terminal, said the letter illustrates "deep flaws" in the Bradwood project.

Charles Deister,  a NorthernStar spokesman, said the company expected NMFS to have questions on the 5,000-page biological assessment, and the letter does not change the company's timeline. "We appreciate NMFS clarifying issues of concern so we can address them in a timely way," he said.

NorthernStar hopes to get permits approved by mid-2010 and open the plant by the end of 2013 or early 2014. LNG terminals receive supercooled liquefied natural gas from ships -- in liquid form, the gas takes up more than 600 times less space -- convert it back to gas then ship it through overland pipelines.

Published:  November 20, 2009 Federal Register (FR).  Excerpts from FR appear below.  For the entire FR Notice go to:

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-27975.htm

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Maritime Administration

TORP Terminal LP, Bienville Offshore Energy Terminal Liquefied Natural Gas Deepwater Port License Application; Preparation of 

Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement

AGENCY: Maritime Administration, DOT.

ACTION: Notice of availability; Notice of public meeting; Request for comments.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The Maritime Administration, in cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard announces the availability of the Draft Supplemental 

Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) for the TORP Terminal LP, Bienville Offshore Energy Terminal (BOET) Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) 

Deepwater Port license amended application. The amended application describes a project that would be located in the Gulf of Mexico, in 

Main Pass block MP 258, approximately 63 miles south of Mobile Point, Alabama. Publication of this notice begins a 45 day comment period and 

provides information on how to participate in the process.

DATES: The public meeting will be held in Mobile, Alabama on December 9, 2009, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and will be preceded by an open house 

from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. The public meeting may end later than the stated time, depending on the number of persons wishing to speak. Material 

submitted in response to this request for comments must reach the Docket Management Facility by January 4, 2010.

ADDRESSES: The open house and public meeting will be held at the: Mobile Convention Center, One South Water Street, Mobile, Alabama 

36602; telephone: 251-208-2100.

The amended application, comments and associated documentation are available for viewing at the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) 

Web site: http://www.regulations.gov under docket number USCG-2006-24644.

****

Summary of the Application

    TORP Terminal LP proposes to own, construct, and operate a deepwater port, the Bienville Offshore Energy Terminal (BOET), in the 

Federal waters of the Outer Continental Shelf on Main Pass Block MP 258, approximately 63 miles south of Mobile Point, Alabama, in a water 

depth of approximately 425 feet. The proposed BOET deepwater port would be capable of mooring a single LNG carrier (LNGC) of up to 

approximately 265,000 cubic meters (m3) (8.8 million cubic feet [ft3]) 

in capacity.

**** 

BOET's major components would include a turret mooring system (TMS), a FRU, a HiLoad unit, two mooring lines that connect the HiLoad 

to the FRU, two high pressure (HP) flexible gas pipes, two floating IF hoses, two umbilicals, and 22.7 mi (36 km) of new subsea pipelines.

No new onshore pipelines or LNG storage facilities are proposed with this action. A shore based facility will be used to facilitate

movement of personnel, equipment, supplies, and disposable materials between the terminal and shore.

Originally published Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 8:47 PM

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010303129_aporlngterminal.html

Two decisions this week have boosted the prospects for liquefied natural gas company Oregon LNG's proposal to build a terminal on 92 acres near Youngs Bay.

The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. -

Two decisions this week have boosted the prospects for liquefied natural gas company Oregon LNG's proposal to build a terminal on 92 acres near Youngs Bay.

A federal magistrate ruled Tuesday that Astoria's Port should extend both its sublease with Oregon LNG and its lease with the Department of State Lands for three decades, despite the port's concerns that it might lose money if the LNG terminal doesn't pan out.

Then Gov. Ted Kulongoski's office said Wednesday it won't investigate the port's lease with the state as anti-LNG activists had requested, even though the $38,400 annual lease price was based on an appraisal that assumed the land would be used for a golf course, rather than a $1 billion LNG plant.

The company is pursuing permits for the terminal from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the states of Oregon and Washington. Its CEO, Peter Hansen, says he expects approval of major permits by late 2010.