LNG: Hot Week for the Cold Rush

The U.S. Coast Guard just published the Draft Environmental Impact Statement(DEIS for the alphabet soup crowd) for the proposed Conoco Phillips Beacon Port terminal. This is ConocoPhillips second proposed terminal - Beacon Port would be located off the LA-TX coast, giving the energy giant a northern Gulf book-end to their Compass Port terminal just off Dauphin Island, AL.

Here’s a direct link to the PDF – Be forwarned, it’s really huge

http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf95/388368_web.pdf

Comments need to be submitted by April 17^th. No word yet on public hearings, dates or locations. For the scoping/open house, they selected Corpus Christi, Galveston and Lafayette – so may be those location again.

Below is some info I quickly pulled from the Executive Summary –more detail and sample comments will follow later.

A couple of quick, related comments and scuttlebutt – looks like the FEIS for Conoco’s other terminal, Compass Port off Dauphin Is, AL will NOT select the closed-loop, Submerged Combustion Vaporizer as the environmentally preferred alternative – looks like Conoco’s hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing about the unfairness of it all found a receptive audience somewhere in the Coast Guard. Check out Matt Brown’s article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune that lays out the issue well.

Also to note some solid reporting, Ben Raines and Bill Finch in the Mobile Register did an amazing job poking holes in all the arguments against closed-loop systems in the Gulf. Check it out here.

Last Friday, I had an opportunity to actually follow up on Excelerate’s grand claim that they could operate profitably in the Gulf with a closed-loop system. Here's what Excelerate said:

Bryngelson said that the colder water in the north Atlantic was somewhat of a factor in the decision to use the closed loop. Because the seawater being sucked through an open-loop LNG terminal is cooled by about 13 degrees before it is discharged from the terminal, it's possible for ice to form inside the machinery if winter sea temperatures dip below about 40 degrees. Temperatures that low can occur for brief periods in New England waters.

But, he said, the water temperatures were not an insurmountable obstacle -- the company can add relatively small quantities of artificial heat to the process -- and his company can operate open-loop systems in places even colder than Boston.

He also emphasized that either system would have been economical for his company in the Gulf. Going to a closed-loop system, he said, would result in increased operational costs that would be less than 2 percent of the value of the LNG product.

At an LNG law conference held in Texas, I asked Rob Bryngelson to back up his claims, and offer those concerned about fisheries impacts the certainty that a closed-loop technology would offer. He declined to do so.

Speaking of declining opportunities to safeguard Gulf fisheries – it looks like Freeport McMoRan is really turning up the heat on Governor Blanco, to get her to back off on her not-quite-a-promise to veto any future open-loop terminals. This could be a significant challenge, so program the Gov’s number into your speed dial, we may need to remind her of her soft-pledge with some significant constituent response soon.

Oh, and if you STILL haven’t taken action to urge Shell to drop their flawed Gulf Landing project and select a closed-loop technology, take one second and do it here. We’re up to nearly 2,000 faxes into Shell so far but we would really like to get past 3,000 – so take action and send it on to your friends.

Continuing on the Shell front, our student attorneys from Tulane will be arguing our case appealing Shell’s permit in front of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans Wednesday, the 8^th. Keep your fingers crossed that “best technology for the marine environment” means the same thing to federal judges that it does to us. I'll post an update on how that goes.

And without further ado, here’s some info from the ConocoPhillips Draft EIS:

Beacon Port DWP to be located outside State waters in the GOM on the U.S OCS. As depicted in Figure 2.0-1 of this Draft EIS, the DWP, called Beacon Port, would consist of a Proposed Terminal, Riser Platform, and connecting pipelines. The Proposed Terminal would be located approximately 45 mi (72 kilometers [km]) south of High Island and 50 mi (80 km) east-southeast of Galveston, Texas. The Riser Platform would be located approximately 27 mi (43 km) south of Holly Beach and 29 mi (47 km) south-southeast of Johnson’s Bayou, Louisiana (LA).

They look at four potential alignments of vaporizer technology:

− The Beacon Port LLC’s proposal for Open Rack Vaporization (ORV) technology,

− Submerged Combustion Vaporization (SCV),

− SCV with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCV-SCR), and

− Shell and Tube Vaporization (STV).

Impacts:

The annual equivalent yield loss due to impingement and entrainment losses from water intakes associated with the Proposed Beacon Port DWP were compared with annual fish landings in Louisiana and Texas. The equivalent yield loss for red drum as a percentage of Louisiana and Texas landings using the base case model inputs (survival rates and density) is 0.5 percent, indicating a minor to moderate, long-term, and adverse impact to that species in the northwestern GOM. The equivalent yield losses for red snapper, menhaden, anchovies, and shrimp using the base case model inputs range from <0.001>

Mitigation:

During operations of the Proposed Beacon Port DWP, the ORV water intake will be located just above, but not on, the sea bottom, to minimize entrainment and impingement relative to what would occur if it were placed at other depths to mitigate the adverse, long-term impact on fish species.

MARAD has determined as a matter of policy that all future deepwater port facilities licensed in the GOM would be required to have prevention, monitoring, and mitigation plans consistent with the provisions included in the Record of Decision (ROD) for Gulf Landing LLC. In consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and other cooperating agencies as appropriate, Beacon Port LLC, at their own cost, will develop and implement plans to assess, minimize, and mitigate impacts to marine fisheries species (including ichthyoplankton) associated with the operation of the ORV.

Moreover, Beacon Port LLC will develop, in coordination with the USCG and NOAA, and implement a monitoring plan to assess impacts of the DWP on fish eggs and larvae in and around the DWP. This monitoring plan will include monitoring for sodium hypochlorite.

Monitoring and mitigation will also require the licensee to provide every three years of operation to the Maritime Administrator, NMFS, and other cooperating agencies, a detailed report of the impact of ORV on marine fisheries species (including ichthyoplankton), relative to the baseline information gathered prior to installation of the GBS. If at that time, the impacts of the DWP on species of concern exceed the base-case impacts as stated in the EIS, Beacon Port LLC shall develop and implement a plan, (approved by MARAD) to mitigate these additional impacts. Depending upon the impacts, mitigation measures could include changes to the operation of the facility, aquaculture projects, wetland restoration or other habitat projects, additional artificial reefs projects, modification of the warming water inlet exclusion devises, research, and education programs.