Category Archives: Maryland

The LNG export shell game: FERC, FE, MARAD, or NEB?

If you’re a Houston fossil fuel company and you can’t get FERC approval fast enough, try FE, or MARAD! Deepwater Port Location & Status Map If that doesn’t work, ship it by land through Canada or Mexico! Local property rights, they laugh at those! Rio Grande, Suwannee River, or Hudson River: just minor obstacles to greed! If the people are tired of profit being more important than their land, water, air, or safety, it’s time to stop this fossil fuel shell game.

MARAD

Continue reading The LNG export shell game: FERC, FE, MARAD, or NEB?

LNG trains to U.S. Gulf and East Coasts

If you had any doubt the fossil fuel industry wants to export fracked methane to China, India, Korea, Japan, etc., from everywhere it can, read this article about Cheniere Energy’s plans to export from Sabine Pass, Corpus Christi, and Freeport, Texas, from Cameron Parish and Hackberry, Louisiana, and from Cove Point, Maryland. “Train” as used here just means a method of shipment, apparently by pipeline.

Housley Carr, RBN Energy, 17 June 2015, Begin The Sabine—Delivering Gas To The Lower 48’s First LNG Export Terminal, Continue reading LNG trains to U.S. Gulf and East Coasts

LNG export approved and proposed

How big is the LNG export gold rush? Here are maps of dozens of approved, proposed, and potential LNG export terminals, one of them even including Carib’s FE-authorized Martin County LNG export facility that FERC never seems to remember and Sabal Trail never talks about.

Update 2015-02-23: Now with the rest of the maps.

300x225 FERC Proposed LNG Export, in LNG, by John S. Quarterman, for SpectraBusters.org, 22 February 2015 In addition to the approved LNG import and export terminals, there are more on this FERC map of Proposed North American LNG Export Terminals, including ones in Lake Charles (2 and 7), Sabine Pass (6), Plaquemines Parish (8 and 11), and Cameron Parish (13) Louisiana, Lavaca Bay (4) and Sabine Pass (9), Texas, Elba Island (5), Georgia, and Jacksonvile (14), Florida, as well as Coos Bay (1) and Astoria (3), Oregon, plus two in Kitimat (15 and 17) and one on Douglas Island (16), British Columbia. One of those proposed BC LNG export terminals is where Spectra Energy proposes to build not one but two pipelines. And even that ain’t all. Continue reading LNG export approved and proposed

Port Dolphin LNG import to Florida from Louisiana and Texas?

Our old friend Port Dolphin is back asking LNG import competing with or displacing Sabal Trail’s fracked methane pipeline, this time possibly shipping gas across the Gulf of Mexico from U.S. LNG export facilities.

300x225 FERC Approved LNG Export and Import, in LNG, by John S. Quarterman, for SpectraBusters.org, 22 February 2015 Back in 2009 Port Dolphin got FERC approval for LNG import, but then there was a big recession, and the “shale gas revolution” (fracking) happened, resulting in most LNG import facilities filing for LNG export instead. But Port Dolphin wants to continue with imports, as Joe Fisher wrote for Natural Gas Intelligence, 20 October 2014, Would-Be Florida LNG Importer Sees Promise in Cross-Gulf Trade,

Florida does not have indigenous gas supply and historically has been served by two interstate natural gas pipeline with a third one planned, Sabal Trail (see Daily GPI, Oct. 24, 2013). Recently announced is a related north-to-south intrastate pipeline project (Florida Southeast Connection) (see Daily GPI, Oct. 10).

Rather than turn its LNG import project around to export liquefied U.S. gas — as other would-be import terminal developers/operators have done — Port Dolphin, which is a unit of Norway’s Hoegh LNG AS, still wants to make a go of importing LNG. It told FERC the project could even regasify domestically sourced LNG from the Gulf of Mexico, for instance.

Translation: Continue reading Port Dolphin LNG import to Florida from Louisiana and Texas?

FERC recovers cost of operations through charges and fees from the industries it regulates –FERC FY14 Budget

Don’t believe FERC is funded by the industries it regulates? Well, let’s look beyond FERC’s own About web page to its actual funding request to Congress. Maybe that will motivate you to ecomment to FERC right now, and to contact your local, state, and national elected and appointed officials.

Acting Chairman Cheryl A. LaFleur, FEDERAL  ENERGY  REGULATORY  COMMISSION, FY 2015 Congressional Performance Budget Request,

Full Cost Recovery

The Commission recovers the full cost of its operations through annual charges and filing fees assessed on the industries it regulates as authorized by the Federal Power Act (FPA) and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986. The Commission deposits this revenue into the Treasury as a direct offset to its appropriation, resulting in no net appropriation.

Clear enough that FERC is 100% funded by the industries it regulates?

That may seem like a win for the taxpayers. But is it a win for you the local landowners Continue reading FERC recovers cost of operations through charges and fees from the industries it regulates –FERC FY14 Budget

FERC nervous about being watched

FERC can’t even say how many pipelines have been approved, rejected, or went forward even if approved; no wonder they’re being scrutinized.

Hannah Northey, E&E, 3 November 2014, FERC faces heightened scrutiny as gas projects proliferate,

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission these days is drawing a crowd of companies promoting projects linked to the U.S. natural gas boom and protesters who say the agency blithely greenlights too many pipelines, export terminals and other gas infrastructure.

Foes of a FERC-approved export terminal at Cove Point, Md., recently rallied Continue reading FERC nervous about being watched

Fracked gas through Sabal Trail to Japan

New pipelines are to push fracked methane to export for profit, as fossil fuel industry analysts spell out, specifically describing a path from fracking through Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise and Transco pipelines and Spectra and NextEra’s Sabal Trail pipeline, and then naming Cove Point LNG export.

Chris Pedersen wrote for OilPrice.com 5 October 2014, Utica Boosts U.S. Natural Gas Production To Record Levels,

To find a market for both Marcellus and Utica gas production, existing pipelines are finding creative ways to move growing sources of gas, while new pipelines are proposed to take larger quantities of gas from large interstate pipelines such as the TRANSCO line. Williams’ new “Atlantic Sunrise” pipeline will connect Marcellus and Utica gas from its TRANSCO line. Sabal Trail LLC, a JV of Spectra and NextEra Energy have proposed to build the “Sabal Trail” pipeline, which would connect with TRANSCO. With the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s recent approval of the Cove Point LNG plant, it is not farfetched to imagine India or Japan producing electricity from Utica gas by the end of the decade.

Sure, that paragraph doesn’t say Continue reading Fracked gas through Sabal Trail to Japan

FERC authorized Cove Point LNG export in Maryland

This is what we’re going to get in Dougherty County, Georgia, and Lowndes County, and Suwannee County, Florida, and all the other counties along whichever route FERC picks for the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline to three already-authorized LNG export operations in Florida, unless somebody actually does something more than just talk. What talk gets you is being counted as one of n speakers at m meetings, and then this:

The Commission found that the proposal, as mitigated with 79 conditions found in Appendix B of today’s order, is in the public interest.

That’s right, FERC found Continue reading FERC authorized Cove Point LNG export in Maryland

Spectra suspends mid-Atlantic pipeline to the sea

Pipeline objections from landowners, taxpayers, local and state government agencies, environmental groups, and historical societies caused mighty Spectra to “suspend” its unnamed $4 billion methane pipeline from Pennsylvania fracking grounds through Virginia to Duke Energy plants near the sea in North Carolina. Similar opposition can make Spectra and Williams and FPL and Duke think again about their proposed $3 billion Transco -> Sabal Trail -> FSC hundred-foot gouge through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida to three already-authorized LNG export operations in Florida.

This was apparently the first report, by John Bruce, for The Recorder of Monterey, Highland County, Virginia, 7 August 2014, Spectra suspends pipeline proposal, Continue reading Spectra suspends mid-Atlantic pipeline to the sea