A set of private investors has formed a Vancouver, WA-based company to pursue a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal at the mouth of the Columbia River on the Oregon side near Warrenton. Oregon LNG last January obtained the management and development rights for Chapter 11-bound Calpine Corp.’s Skipanon project.

The company announced earlier in June it is seeking a permit to build a 117-mile natural gas transmission pipeline from the proposed receiving terminal site easterly along the Columbia to a point in the Portland metropolitan area where it would interconnect with the existing pipeline grid near Molalla, OR.

Oregon has four other active proposals for LNG terminals — three upstream along the Columbia River in Oregon and one at Coos Bay along the southern Pacific Coast of the state. The latter project, Jordan Cove, was slated to make a filing this month to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) (see Daily GPI, April 20).

Oregon LNG told local news media that it filed preliminary plans May 31 with FERC for building the 1 Bcf/d LNG facility and a pipeline capable of transporting up to 1.5 Bcf/d. The company proposes to follow an existing power transmission corridor through most of the six counties it would traverse from the receiving terminal. Three local hearings are to be held in communities this month along the route and in Warrenton, the proposed site for the LNG terminal for which Calpine had completed preliminary site work.

Two former Calpine executives, Peter Hansen and Mohammed Alrai, are principal officers in Oregon LNG. However, the firm’s website does not indicate who the principal backers for the company are, and officials at Oregon’s Public Utility Commission and energy department had no details on the conpany’s owership.

A project farther in from the coast and along the banks of the Columbia, Northern Star Natural Gas Co.’s Bradwood Landing, is the furthest along in the permitting process, and in March it received a favorable U.S. Coast Guard report, saying the lower Columbia River is suitable for LNG deliveries as long as several safety and security conditions are met.

Both Northern Star and Calpine in the past have worked hard selling the concept of LNG in the local communities. There is opposition from the Columbia River Clean Energy Coalition that has publicly said proposed LNG facilities “present the quintessential environment debate.”

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