The Coast Guard must approve all offshore projects in the United States and has 12 months to appraise and approve any development proposals, but can also ‘stop the clock’ at any time in the review process, as it has done now with Cabrillo Port, to obtain further information from the developers of any project.
The Cabrillo Port proposal to locate the floating gas hub 30 kilometres off the coast from the Californian town of Oxnard has attracted widespread opposition from community and environmental groups. Prior to the Coast Guard’s latest move, a May 5 deadline for a final decision had been earmarked.
BHP has made no official comment on the matter although public affairs head Malcolm Garrett was reported as saying it was not unexpected and was all a part of the approvals process.
The Mexican decision was announced last Friday, in which proponent ChevronTexaco said the country’s Regulatory Energy Commission had approved a construction permit for the facility while the Communication and Transport Secretariat had formalised the granting of the offshore concession where the terminal would be located, eight kilometres from the coast.
The facility, off Tijuana in Baja California, is the hub where the Gorgon partners, ChevronTexaco, Shell and ExxonMobil, plan to ship gas from the massive West Australian gas field, after liquefaction and export from ChevronTexaco’s base on Barrow Island.
The partners are planning a one train LNG facility on the island, which itself has attracted similar opposition from community, environmental and some government departments.
BHP is planning to develop the Scarborough gas field in the deeper Carnarvon Basin and liquefy the gas in Onslow before exporting it to the North American market. There are currently around 40 proposals for LNG terminals on America’s west coast, almost all of which have drawn fire from opposition groups.
The threat of a catastrophic explosion through fire or terrorist activity has been a major fear factor for North American communities.
Dow Jones reported US Coast Guard deepwater ports chief Mark Prescott as saying the review was halted due the amount of submissions wanting more information on the possible impacts of the project.
“We looked at the comments and the shortcomings in the documents and made a decision to stop the clock in order to get more information from BHP,” Prescott was reported as saying.
“We had to make a decision on whether the comments were legitimate and we agreed that there was an opportunity to make some improvements.”
It was not known how long the suspension would be in place for.
