Local opposition was already forming earlier this week along the Southern California coast in response to Houston-based Crystal Energy LLC’s $125 million proposal to transform an offshore oil platform in federal waters 11 miles off the coast of Oxnard, CA, into a liquefied natural gas receiving terminal that would pipe gas to shore through a new underwater pipeline. The gas would come onshore near the Reliant Energy’s coastal Mandalay Bay Power Plant.

Allthough the project faces years of regulatory processes at both the federal and state levels, a Los Angeles Times news report Thursday indicated local government officials, community activist groups and environmentalists are already expressing opposition to the conceptual proposal. These same people last year stopped another LNG terminal proposal — this one for onshore facilities — at nearby Ormond Beach in Oxnard near another Reliant power plant.

A subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, Oxy Energy Services, had proposed the Ormond Beach LNG terminal, but the proposed site eventually was purchased by the state conservation agency to protect the coastal marshland.

While the mayor of Oxnard and other critics cite safety concerns for the coastal town’s 200,000 residents, Crystal Energy representatives are promoting their plans as a safe, economic and sensible alternative to an onshore plant by moving it 11 miles offshore. It is a “unique opportunity” for California to get more natural gas, which it needs for the longer term, and by using an existing oil platform for the terminal, the environmental impact is limited to the proposed 11-mile pipeline in an existing under water pipeline right-of-way, Crystal’s president, William O. Perkins, was quoted in the LA Times report.

Idle for several years, the offshore platform was originally constructed by Chevron Oil in 1979, Crystal announced Tuesday it signed a long-term lease for Platform Grace, as it is named. With the lease in place, Crystal indicated in the news report that it will file for permits from several federal and state agencies, including, the U.S. Coast Guard, California State Lands Commission and the California Coastal Commission. Locally, the Ventura County Supervisors and the Oxnard City Council all must approve the project, too.

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