The Port of Long Beach, CA, has delayed the release of a joint draft environmental impact report (EIR) to FERC on the Long Beach liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal proposed by Sound Energy Solutions, a joint venture of Mitsubishi Corp. and ConocoPhillips. The agency was expected to file the report this month with FERC but now is expecting to a delay of at least several weeks.

“We haven’t made an announcement about the EIR, but we are aiming for mid-October,” said a spokesperson for the port. The port’s oversight board meets Oct. 10 and 17, so it is expected to release the long-anticipated report on one of those days.

“We are hopeful to have the EIR ready for one of those meetings, and we’ll know better next week whether we are going to make it on one of the October dates, or perhaps later than that.”

The City of Long Beach resumed negotiations last spring with the project sponsors on a gas supply deal and an eventual 2.4-mile, 24-inch-diameter pipeline to connect the proposed terminal to the existing Southern California Gas Co. transmission backbone system. In the meantime, state officials have been pushing FERC and others to make sure California has adequate input into the process, and some elected officials, such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have indicated they are leaning toward an offshore site if an LNG terminal is sited along California’s coast.

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