In another indication that liquefied natural gas could becomemore than a niche fuel in North America, San Francisco-basedChevron said yesterday it is “reviewing options” for importing LNGto serve the West Coast. If the project proves economically viable,Chevron said its first supplies could arrive by 2005.

Although there were no specific details on where Chevron wouldstore the LNG, it said that a team would evaluate severalalternative locations, including an offshore site, as part of itsproject review.

“We think this project has tremendous possibilities both interms of helping to ease the region’s energy shortages and using aclean fuel to do it,” said Peter Robertson, president of ChevronOverseas Petroleum Inc.

The LNG would be supplied by Chevron’s extensive holdings inAustralia, and Chevron said some of the gas would be used as fuelfor new and existing electric generation plants.

In recent months, several other producers have announced plansto bring more LNG to North America, and the Chevron announcement isthe second in less than a month that specifically targets the WestCoast. Earlier this month, Phillips Petroleum Co. and El Paso Corp.signed a definitive agreement to supply southern California andMexico’s Baja California with Timor Sea LNG (see Daily GPI, March 9).

The two companies’ subsidiaries signed a letter of intent for ElPaso’s long-term purchase of LNG from a plant to be built byPhillips near Darwin, Australia, which would provide up to 4.8million tons of LNG also beginning in 2005 for North Americanmarkets.

The Phillips deal is part of a plan by Houston-based El Paso,which said in February that it would spend $1.5 billion over thenext five years to become a major LNG player in North America (seeDaily GPI, Feb. 6). Including the Phillips deal, El Paso said itwould build six LNG terminals for North American markets, includingthree in the United States, two in Mexico and one in the Bahamas,with five serving the U.S. marketplace.

Also in early February, Enron Corp. said it too would beginsupplying LNG to U.S. markets, announcing a plan to build aterminal in the Bahamas, which would pipeline supplies to Florida(see Daily GPI, Feb. 2).

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