Following its move earlier this month to abandon plans to build an offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal off North Baja, Chevron Corp. is actively pursuing existing and new sites on all three coasts of North America, a Houston-based spokesperson told NGI late Tuesday. Chevron is not saying how much it spent on the more than three-year-old Coronado Islands venture that had received a permit to build from Mexican authorities.

With worldwide oil and natural gas interests, Chevron’s strategy is to build or secure regasification capacity to support its equity liquefaction projects, LNG trading business, and future growth opportunities. It has two other regasification deals in play elsewhere in the United States — 1 Bcf/d capacity reserved at Cheniere’s Sabine Pass facility in Louisiana, and federal approvals for another facility at Casotte Landing in Pascagoula, MS.

“We continue to evaluate a number of other potential sites for natural gas import terminals on the East, West and Gulf Coasts of North America,” said spokesperson Margaret Cooper.

After recently filing for permit waivers with three Mexican federal agencies — Regulatory Energy Commission (CRE), the Mexican equivalent of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC); Communication and Transport Secretariat; and Environmental/Natural Resources Secretariat, Cooper said Chevron’s decision to stop work on the project was strictly based on “business needs.”

She explained that the proposed Baja offshore project was developed with the intent of receiving supply from its share of the large LNG output off the Northwest Shelf of Australia in the Gorgon Field. In the meantime, Chevron has signed what Cooper called “Heads of Agreements” for a majority of its Gorgon gas share to its customers in Asia, and the rest of the Gorgon LNG will go to Chevron’s internal marketing system, Cooper said.

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