Debate

While the debate rages about when, and if, there will be another liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal sited along the West Coast, particularly in California, a TransCanada Pipeline executive Tuesday raised the hypothetical question of whether the West really needs a second LNG terminal at this time. Jeff Rush, vice president for TransCanada’s GTN and North Baja pipelines, made his remarks to The LDC Forum: Rockies & West in Los Angeles.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) signaled that he will schedule debate this month on a bill based on a deal negotiated by Republicans Wednesday that would open up eight million acres in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural gas leasing and would allow sharing of federal royalties from offshore production with four Gulf coastal states.

The era of cheap natural gas is over, most would say. Talk of a 32 Tcf market by 2015 has been supplanted, in part, by a growing debate over how best to encourage efficiency and conservation among consumers, with the goal of lowering prices for all.

The era of cheap natural gas is over, most would say. Talk of a 32 Tcf market by 2015 has been supplanted, in part, by a growing debate over how best to encourage efficiency and conservation among consumers.

Democrats late Wednesday opened debate on the Senate’s $60 billion tax reconciliation package by offering an amendment to impose a windfall profits tax on the earnings of major energy companies. Republicans responded in fiery opposition.

With applicants and opponents both primed for a long debate, the draft environmental impact report on a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the Port of Long Beach, CA, will be released on Monday when the port oversight board is scheduled to meet, according to Tom Giles, the COO for Sound Energy Solutions (SES), a joint venture of Mitsubishi Corp. and ConocoPhillips that has proposed the terminal.

The energy bill has been approved by Congress and signed into law by President Bush, but debate over some of the more controversial energy issues that didn’t make it into the bill, such as removing the moratoriums on oil and natural gas drilling in much of the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), appear to be far from over, according to Washington sources.

Opponents of a massive coastal development on a previously undeveloped part of seaside Los Angeles have reignited the long-standing debate about the safety and environmental suitability of a major new suburban development near a 60-year-old underground natural gas storage facility operated by Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility subsidiary.

Opponents of a massive coastal development on a previously undeveloped part of seaside Los Angeles have reignited the long-standing debate about the safety and environmental suitability of a major new suburban development near a 60-year-old underground natural gas storage facility operated by Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility subsidiary.