Joining the increasing crowd of energy plant developers on North Baja beaches, Shell Mexico Tuesday announced that it received a permit from federal energy regulators in Mexico to build its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in North Baja, joining Sempra Energy and Marathon affiliates that also have obtained approvals from the Comision Regulatodora de Energia (CRE).

In an announcement out of Houston, Shell said its affiliate, Terminal LNG de Baja, S. de R.L. de C.V., was awarded the gas storage and regasification permit. Along with an environmental permit secured in April, Shell said it now has the “strong base” on which to obtain remaining permits to develop the terminal and associated gas pipelines at its site north of Ensenada on the Pacific Coast.

Like San Diego-based Sempra Energy, which announced both federal and local Mexican permits on Monday, Shell’s site is at Costa Azul, about the same distance north of Ensenada. It also is looking at a 1 Bcf/d capacity of natural gas with expected start-up of the plant in 2007. Like Sempra, Shell still needs to contract for new supplies of natural gas that would be shipped in trans-oceanic ships as LNG.

Shell said it is eyeing several gas sources in the Asia-Pacific Basin The regasification terminal would be linked to an existing natural gas transmission pipeline in North Baja by a new pipeline Shell would develop. Sempra owns that Baja pipeline jointly with a PG&E merchant affiliate. Shell expects to market its gas to large industrial users on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border in the far West.

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