FERC has given final environmental clearance to Gulf LNG Energy LLC and Gulf LNG Pipeline LLC to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on a 33-acre site in the Port of Pascagoula in Mississippi and an associated pipeline.

“We conclude that, with the use of Gulf LNG’s proposed mitigation and adoption of our recommended mitigation measures, construction and operation of the proposed facilities would have limited adverse environmental impact,” FERC staff said in the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) that was issued Friday on the companion projects [CP06-12, CP06-13].

Gulf LNG Energy’s $450 million LNG Clean Energy Project would include two 160,000-cubic-meter LNG storage tanks and a vaporization plant capable of sending out 1.5 Bcf/d of regasified LNG, associated facilities and five miles of 36-inch diameter pipeline. Gulf LNG Energy executed an agreement with the Port of Pascagoula for the right to build the LNG terminal on lands in the Bayou Casotte at the Port of Pascagoula that are owned or controlled by the Jackson County Port Authority.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission typically approves an LNG project within weeks of issuing an FEIS. The company estimates the terminal would take three years to build and would be in operation in 2009.

Gulf LNG Energy is owned by several Houston-based individual investors and Angola’s state-owned oil and gas company, Sonangol, which has purchased a significant equity stake in the company. Sonangol has substantial natural gas resources and is performing front-end engineering and design work for a liquefaction facility in Angola to be built by 2009 with partners Chevron, British Petroleum, TOTAL and ExxonMobil under the name of ALNG.

Last May, FERC issued a draft environmental impact statements for another LNG terminal project in Pascagoula — one proposed by Chevron Corp. subsidiary Bayou Casotte Energy LLC on a 264-acre site located adjacent to Chevron’s Pascagoula refinery (see Daily GPI, May 22). That project is now awaiting a favorable FEIS.

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