Gulf
Landing may be only tip of an LNG iceberg
“I don’t think they have a handle on what the cumulative impacts will be,”
said Jeff Rester, with the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Council (GSMFC). “What
kind of impacts will we see with three, four, or maybe seven LNG terminals in
the Gulf?”
By
AL ROGERS
RodnReel.com
Since Shell U.S. Gas and Power’s license was
approved last month to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal off the
coast of Cameron Parish last month, there has been a great deal of controversy
on the company’s apparent reluctance to seriously consider environmental
concerns raised by federal fisheries scientists.
The Washington D.C.-based Maritime Administration’s
(MARAD) decision was handed down Feb. 16, after reviewing three environmental
impact studies (EIS) that showed no consensus in projected numbers of marine
life that will perish at Shell’s Gulf Landing LNG terminal.
The Houston-based company is expected to begin
construction in an area 38 miles offshore. The terminal will be capable of
processing more than 1 billion cubic feet of gas a day. It would be transferred
from tankers into a network of pipelines that would run to Louisiana and Texas.
The Deepwater Port license was granted in spite of environmental concerns from
marine biologists, federal and state fisheries managers, conservation leaders,
charter boat captains, recreational anglers and commercial seafood industry
groups.
The opposition is not with the product or with the LNG
terminals that Shell and many other companies hope to build. The environmental
concerns are within the open loop or open rack systems that Shell and other
companies prefer to use off the Louisiana coast. At Gulf Landing more than 136
million gallons of water each day will be pumped through a massive radiator-like
system where it flows over a series of panel coils. This water warms the
minus-260-degree liquefied fuel and turns it into back into a gas for shipment.
As unimaginable volumes of seawater enter this vacuum-like system, so will
countless marine species, including fish eggs, larvae, zooplankton, juvenile and
adult finfish, shrimp and crustaceans.
Gulf Landing has been the topic in recent weeks
among many recreational anglers. But officials now say it may be just be the tip
of an LNG iceberg – the first in an onslaught of many others to follow. There
are currently proposals for seven LNG terminals that many experts say
have the potential to negatively impact Louisiana’s fragile marine ecosystem.
Companies with plans to build the LNG open loop terminals that could affect our
area include Shell, ChevronTexaco, Freeport MacMoran, ExxonMobil, Conoco
Phillips and Excelerate.
Today the Texas-based Excelerate Energy took a historic and
controversial step when it established the first LNG terminal in the nation in
more than 20 years. It happened this morning when the Excelsior, a sprawling
908-foot, 200 million dollar super-cooled vessel arrived at the company’s Gulf
Gateway terminal 116 miles south of Cameron. After routine inspections by the
U.S. Coast Guard this week, it is expected to be fully operational by Sunday.
There is no question that some redfish and other marine
species will die at these open loop LNG terminals. But there has been much
disagreement on what those numbers will be. Unfortunately, southwest
Louisiana may see the greatest mortalities, as five proposals were filed with
MARAD and U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) officials in Washington, D.C. To date,
three of those proposals, including Gulf Landing and Gulf Gateway, have already
been approved. The two others remain in various stages of the application
process.
East of the Mississippi River may not escape the effects of
open loop processing of LNG. Two companies have filed applications with federal
regulators for projects in these areas.
“Gulf Landing may just be the tip of the iceberg,” said
Jeff Rester, habitat program manager with the Gulf States Marine Fisheries
Council (GSMFC) on Tuesday. “(Gulf Landing) is done. They’ve got their
permit. They can build it if they want to.”
Meanwhile, anglers and various industry-related
organizations across the state are filing petitions and forming coalitions in
opposition to the open loop processes.
Like many recreational anglers in southwest Louisiana,
Rester said he is gravely concerned. There is one relatively small area off the
southwest Louisiana coast where four open loop LNG terminals are planned. This
doesn’t include the Gulf Gateway LNG terminal, located 116 miles south of
Cameron. Unlike the other proposals, plans call for the fuel to be turned into
gas on the tankers before being transferred to the terminal, a pipeline
connection on a submersible buoy.
The four LNG terminals that have Rester and others
concerned are planned to be located in areas within 30 to 50 miles of each
other. These include Shell U.S. Gas & Power’s Gulf Landing,
located some 38 miles off the coast of Cameron in West Cameron Block 213;
ChevronTexaco’s Port Pelican, 36 miles off the southwest
Louisiana coast; ExxonMobil’s Pearl Crossing, 41 miles southeast
of Cameron; and Conoco Phillips’ Beacon Port, 29 miles off the
southwest Louisiana coast.
Two of these four companies have already received approval
from MARAD. Gulf Gateway is expected to begin operating this
Sunday while Gulf Landing got the green light to proceed on Feb.
16. Port Pelican was the first open loop LNG terminal off the Louisiana coast to
get its license on March 31, 2004. However, work on the project has been
suspended until it has decided on a supplier of imported gas. Company officials
are also questioning whether or not their chosen location is a good one.
Environmentalists maintain that we’re not out of the
woods yet. Rester warns that just because this project has been suspended does
not mean it will not materialize.
ExxonMobil’s Pearl Crossing and the Conoco
Phillips’ Beacon Port both remain in various stages of the
application process. Federal regulatory officials have suspended the application
timeline on Pearl Crossing to give ExxonMobil more time to provide
the data that will be used in the requisite environmental impact statement (EIS).
The Beacon Port application, received Jan. 18th, is
being reviewed for completeness by MARAD officials in Washington, D.C. Plans for
Beacon Port also call for a metering platform 56 miles off the
southwest Louisiana coast.
In addition, federal fisheries managers and others keeping
a close watch on the recent LNG developments say they have concerns over the way
applications are being reviewed. They fear that the regulatory agency officials
with the Coast Guard (USCG) are reviewing the projects one at a time, and not as
a whole.
“I don’t think they have a handle on what the
cumulative impacts will be,” Rester said Tuesday. “What kind of impacts will
we see with three, four, or maybe seven LNG terminals in the Gulf?”
With each open loop LNG
terminal taking between 100 million and 200 million gallons of water a day,
these facilities, and particularly a combination of these facilities, have the
potential to filter enormous volumes of water.
Anglers who fish east of the
Mississippi River have two LNG proposals to watch out for. Although Conoco
Phillips’ Compass Port terminal remains in the application
process, it carries potential for serious damage. Plans call to locate this
facility in an area 11 miles off the coast of Dauphin Island, Ala. This is in a
vital estuary, dangerously close to the Chandeleur Islands.
An even greater concern about
this project is its expected flow rate of 200 million gallons a day. If this
project receives approved, some 73 trillion gallons of water would be taken in
and filtered through the system annually. A final draft of the EIS is under
review by the USCG and MARAD.
The final project that could
affect Louisiana estuaries is Freeport MacMoran’s Main Pass Energy Hub. The
expected flow rate of this project is 100 million gallons a day. If approved, it
will be located 17 miles east of Pass a Loutre on the Mississippi River Delta in
Main Pass Block 299.
Project officials hope to use
an inactive sulfur mining facility to “receive, re-gasify, store and transfer
natural gas and natural gas liquids in the U.S. National Gas Network.”
Freeport MacMoran intends to use subterranean salt domes for the storage of LNG.
The application timeline on this project has been suspended until the company
produces the required data to develop the EIS.
Anglers are urged to keep a close eye on
these and other future LNG proposals. Keep reading Rodnreel.com for the latest
information.
