Overruling the base commander, Defense Department officials confirmed last Monday that ChevronTexaco is looking at the 200-square-mile Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Training Center in north San Diego County for possible on- and offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal sites. Last week the commander of the base wrote California officials saying he was unequivocally opposed to a LNG site on or near the coastal training base.

Pentagon clarification came in a Los Angeles Times report Tuesday that quoted H. T. Johnson, assistant Navy secretary for installations and the environment, as saying the Camp Pendleton commander had not accurately expressed the position of the Marine Corps or the Department of the Navy on the question of potential LNG sites being analyzed.

The Washington, DC-based military officials indicated to the Times that military officials are in talks with ChevronTexaco regarding the potential of a site at Camp Pendleton, which is the largest Marine training center in the West and the largest undeveloped strip of coastal land south of Ventura County in the southern half of California.

A ChevronTexaco spokesperson said the company was “encouraged and appreciative” of the Pentagon officials’ clarification, and ChevronTexaco remains very interested in siting an LNG facility in California and believes more than one facility ultimately will be needed along the West Coast.

In a talk to an international energy conference in the Far East, ChevronTexaco CEO Dave O’Reilly said last Monday that the company is only months away from receiving permits from federal and local government sources in Mexico for the company’s proposed offshore LNG terminal near the Coronado Islands along the North Baja California Pacific Coast.

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