Ingleside Energy Center LLC, an affiliate of Occidental Petroleum Corp., has filed an application seeking approval to build and operate a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The planned $400 million LNG receiving terminal would be sited on an 82-acre brownfield site in Ingleside, TX, where Occidental Petroleum has a large chemical manufacturing plant. The Los-Angeles-based chemical producer has asked FERC to approve the proposed facility, which would have a send-out rate of 1 Bcf/d and regasification capability of 3.5 billion standard cubic feet per day, by April 30, 2005, so that it can begin construction in the third quarter. It estimated that it will take three years to construct the project.

The terminal also will have two LNG receiving tanks, each with a capacity of 1,006,000 barrels, and will be capable of unloading 140 ships per year, according to the company’s application [CP05-13].

Occidental said it plans to use only about 10% of the proposed send-out capacity from the terminal for its own operations, with the remainder of the LNG-sourced gas going directly into intrastate and interstate pipelines serving the southern, midwestern and eastern markets.

In a companion application, the newly formed San Patricio Pipeline LLC, also an Occidental affiliate, asked the Commission for the green light to build a 26-mile, 1 Bcf/d pipeline that would extend from the proposed Ingleside facility along the Texas coast to interconnections with nine existing intrastate and interstate pipelines throughout the county.

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