Coast Guard to Issue Final Environmental Impact Statements for Two Offshore LNG Terminals
After postponing the offshore LNG terminal licensing process for several proposals last year, the US Coast Guard says it plans to issue two final environmental impact statements in the near future for two Gulf of Mexico projects: Freeport-McMoRan’s Main Pass Energy Hub, 38 miles east of Venice, Louisiana, and ConocoPhillips’ Compass Port off Dauphin Island, Ala. The Times-Picayune today reports that ConocoPhillips has taken issue with the Coast Guard’s decision to label the closed-loop system used to regasify LNG as the “preferred environmental technology,” when three other terminals already have been approved by the agency using open-loop technology. Environmentalists have expressed strong concern that open-loop technology, which uses ocean water to warm and regasify the LNG, threatens marine life. ConocoPhillips says that it prefers the open-loop system because it is safer and more cost-efficient.