Long Beach LNG Proposal Caught in Political Squeeze

While its sponsors continue to talk confidently, the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the Long Beach, CA, harbor Monday was suspended in a political vise about to be squeezed between the city political leaders and the separate Port of Long Beach. Port officials are dragging their feet on completing a final environmental impact statement and report (EIS/EIR) jointly with FERC. That final report now is not expected to be released until the first quarter next year, if ever.

The port’s chief officer told the city council and mayor last week that he won’t assign additional staff to finalizing the EIS/EIR until it gets a “clear understanding” from the city’s elected officials that they are prepared to support the project. Indicating there is still a lot of work that needs to be done on the environmental documents, the port chief said the city’s energy department has not reached an agreement with the project sponsors, something he said was a precondition to the port approving the project.

A letter from the Port’s Harbor Commission president to the city council and a subsequent reply from Long Beach’s newly elected mayor and former Southern California Edison Co. president, Bob Foster, publicly sounding his opposition to an LNG facility in the harbor, have thrown into question whether the EIS/EIR and ultimately the terminal project will ever be decided. “There are a lot of different ways this thing could go,” a port spokesperson told NGI.

Monday the port was still awaiting more definitive word from the city council, and the spokesperson said the harbor commission ideally would like the council to vote on the project. Negotiations between the city and Sound Energy Solutions (SES), a Mitsubishi-ConocoPhillips joint venture proposing to build and operate the LNG facility, have been ongoing for more than two years without any resolution, and in the meantime a lease agreement between the port and SES expired earlier this year.

Natural Gas Intelligence