North America’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage and transshipment facility at Grassy Point on Placentia Bay in southeastern Newfoundland moved a step closer to reality with the Monday release of an environmental assessment report on the project by Canada’s Environmental Assessment Agency.

The 450-some page report describes the project in detail and outlines what measures are recommended that Newfoundland LNG take to mitigate impacts on the environment and local fishermen.

Newfoundland LNG is a joint venture of North Atlantic Pipeline Partners LP and LNG Partners LLC. It filed plans for the project with federal and provincial regulators in late 2006 (see Daily GPI, Nov. 29, 2006). The project would include eight 160,000-cubic-meter storage tanks, three jetties with berthing facilities capable of mooring 265,000-cubic-meter LNG cargo ships, and a tugboat basin along one of North America’s deepest ice-free ports. It would not include LNG regasification facilities.

The project, which is intended to accommodate up to 400 vessels per year, was slated to begin construction in summer 2007, but Newfoundland LNG President Mark Turner told NGI Tuesday that construction start is now expected to begin late this year or in early 2009.

The comment period on the assessment ends May 28. After that comments will be compiled along with Newfoundland LNG’s responses and delivered to Canada’s Minister of Environment for final approval.

“I think we’re in a very good position from what I understand from talks with some of the other agencies,” Turner said Tuesday. “I still anticipate sanction or permitting approval some time in June.” He said he and his partners began consideration of the project about a decade ago.

Newfoundland LNG said it believes the province offers “unique and strategic geographical advantages,” particularly for LNG suppliers in the North Sea and Barents Sea regions but also for suppliers in the Persian Gulf. Suppliers bringing LNG from those areas will require “market flexibility, penetration and logistical consideration for addressing long transportation distances and accessibility.” The Grassy Point project is designed to provide these Atlantic Basin LNG suppliers with supply-chain solutions

For more information on the project, go to www.newfoundlandlng.com. For the environmental assessment, go to www.ceaa.gc.ca, click on “environmental assessments,” scroll down and click on “Newfoundland and Labrador;” the link to the assessment is filed under “active comprehensive studies.”

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