Company holds off on LNG plans
ecnnews.com
Saturday, December 11, 2004
By Lisa Arsenault
Staff writer
The Texas company planning a liquefied natural gas unloading facility 10 miles off the Gloucester coast doesn't expect to file its application for the project until late May, roughly six months behind the original plan.
Excelerate Energy LLC released preliminary plans for a $200 million LNG line off Gloucester in June. The proposal drew immediate criticism from city officials and local fishermen who are afraid the docking facility will disturb fish habitats and force more fishing ground closures.
Excelerate had planned to file its application for the project with federal and state regulators by December but has decided more time is needed to get input from the public first, Excelerate Vice President Rob Bryngelson said.
The delay will give city officials and fishing industry advocates more time to organize opposition to the controversial project, Mayor John Bell said.
"Because the approval process is sort of a short fuse, I suspect they are not going to file until they know they can win," Bell said. "There's not an ounce of paper that has been filed but there is a swirl of activity around LNG and Gloucester."
Research vessels hired by Excelerate have been in Gloucester mapping the ocean floor over the past few weeks.
The preliminary plans call for specially constructed natural gas tankers that would dock at two floating buoys 10 miles off the Gloucester coast. Once the tankers are safely moored, they would begin a process that converts natural gas from its liquid state to a gas — all onboard the ship. The gas would then be delivered through the buoy.
The gas would travel down to a 24-inch wide, 8-mile long pipeline buried about 3 feet under the ocean floor. It would connect to the existing underwater, offshore Hubline gas pipeline and eventually to land. The buoys are strong enough to withstand a hurricane and would allow boats to pass over the dock when a tanker is not making a delivery, according to Kathleen Eisbrenner, the president of Excelerate Energy LLC.
Eisbrenner said the floating buoys do not touch the ocean floor, where it could disturb fish habitats.
But local fishermen say laying close to 12 miles of pipe to connect the facility to an existing natural gas pipeline between Danvers and Weymouth would be harmful to fish and close key fishing grounds.
At a meeting yesterday at the National Marine Fisheries Service lab on Emerson Avenue, fishermen said they are afraid of the risk of fishing with nets that drag along the bottom with a natural gas pipeline buried only 3 feet deep. They also asked how much water around the tankers will be closed off for security when the tankers are moving to and from the buoys.
The LNG tankers are 970-foot ships that require a 500-meter security border at all times, Bryngelson said. The ships will anchor at the buoys one at a time. Once a tanker connects, it is at the buoy for a week and then another one comes in.
Bryngelson said the company chose that area of the water because the depth was just right for the facility and it is outside of designated shipping lanes. He also explained that a shortage of gas and a desire to build the facilities offshore due to security threats on land since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Bell and other city officials are trying to get Gov. Mitt Romney to come out against the proposed Gloucester LNG facility.
"Because the approval process is sort of a short fuse, I suspect they are not going to file until they know they can win," Bell said.
Bell is drafting a letter to the governor opposing the project that he hopes will be signed by the City Council, as well as the mayors of Salem and Beverly. Bell said he hopes to meet with the governor and the lieutenant governor sometime in January. |
