Although they are small operators compared to the principal project proponents dotting the liquefied natural gas (LNG) landscape, a quartet of privately financed veteran energy industry players indicated they have land and infrastructure interconnections well established for their run at siting a small LNG receiving terminal on the only harbor along Oregon’s rugged Pacific Coast.

There is an option to purchase 90 acres of shoreline and upland property in Coos Bay from Roseburg Lumber Co. as the prime location for the gas receiving facility and an adjacent small electric generating plant, according to the backers. A PacifiCorp substation on the property could process the power output from the power plant, most of whose supplies would be consumed in the LNG facility operations.

Finally, the sponsors already have identified a pipeline route and the need for a natural gas transmission interconnection with the local gas distributor’s transmission system that traverses the southwestern quarter of the state. Generally, the lead spokesperson for the Jordan Cove Energy group indicated the group is talking to all the principal stakeholders needed to make the project a reality.

Earlier in the month it was made public that yet another proposed LNG project was emerging on the West Coast in its very early stages of the Oregon energy siting process. Backed by a private group of four natural gas industry veterans, the project expected to have a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission application filed next year for a $150 million receiving terminal and peaking generation plant, bringing gas relatively short distances from northeastern Russia or Alaska. Gas volumes of 120-150 MMcf/d are envisioned, according to one of the proponents, Robert Braddock.

This is not a “build-it-and-they-will-come” project, according to Braddock, who said that he and his partners (Geoffrey Mitchell, Tom Wilson and Elliot Trepper) are in discussions upstream with LNG sources in both Alaska and Russia (the latter, presumably Royal Dutch Shell), and downstream with Northwest Natural Gas and the interstate Northwest Pipeline on the takeaway from the proposed plant. And in the next two months, he expects a major national industry player will join the project.

He declined to name the companies in Alaska and Russia, and he said the primary driver for the plant along the southern Oregon coast comes from “commercial/residential” load growth throughout the Northwest — not industrial — although Coos Bay historically has been heavily industrialized.

“PacifiCorp has a substation located on the proposed site that is sufficiently sized to accommodate the output from the small on-site power plant,” Braddock said. “Sendout of natural gas will be delivered the Northwest Natural Gas (distribution utility’s transmission) pipeline that will run adjacent to the project site.”

“Transmission pipelines in the region are constrained — particularly west of the Cascade Mountains — and south of Portland, OR,” said Denver-based Braddock, a former Tosco Corp. engineer/manager, noting that Northwest Pipeline had an open season three years ago and most of the interest it drew was from proposed new gas-fired electric generation. Since that power plant development petered out, “no actual upgrade work was done,” he said, and because of the poor regional economy, the pipelines have muddled through and bought some time as industrial load actually dropped.

If the FERC and state permitting go as planned, Braddock said construction for the project could begin by the last quarter of 2006, with a potential start-up for LNG deliveries in late 2008 or early 2009. The potential LNG sources have indicated that the proposed project — even with its relatively small volumes — would be economic with the relative short oceanic transport from Alaska or far-eastern Russia.

Having filed a notice of intent to eventually make a formal application to the state, The Jordan Cove project is now subjected to a public information hearing that will be conducted by the state energy department next month at the Coos Bay city hall.

Copies of the NOI can be viewed at the state energy department office in Salem, OR., or at the Coos Bay Public Library, according to a notice on the state energy department’s web site.

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