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Google News: Passamaquoddy & LNG

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• IEA official says increased LNG imports to United States unlikely (Mar 11)
• An unconventional glut (Mar 11)
• A gas future beyond US (Mar 11)
• Energy: A foot on the gas (Mar 11)
• Update:CERA Week:US power cos may be forced to embrace shale-gas boom (Mar 11)
• Shale technology boom spurs revolution in gas market
• Risk/reward profile for natural gas is improving
• Editorial: Good day for LNG
• Editorial: Give Md. the say on LNG [Editorial] (Mar 11)
• FERC grants Trunkline LNG's request to place infrastructure enhancement project in service
• LNG deliveries to Golden Pass terminal expected to begin in September 2010 (Mar 11)
• Senate approves Palin critic to head Alaska gas pipeline office (Mar 11)
• Garden Club to hold annual sale
• Federal judge grants preliminary injunction in favor of Oregon LNG in dispute with Port of Astoria
• Judge orders Port of Astoria to renew Oregon LNG lease (Mar 11)
• Court orders Port to renew LNG lease (Mar 11)
• FERC schedules public meetings on pipeline project associated with Oregon LNG terminal (Mar 11)
• The 100 year natural gas myth (Mar 11)

12 March 2010

IEA official says increased LNG imports to United States unlikely (Mar 11) — LNG Law Blog

Speaking at CERA Week in Houston, Nobuo Tanaka, executive director for the International Energy Agency, said that North American shale gas plays are likely to limit LNG imports to the U.S. market. Tanaka also said that increased shale gas production has been a factor in the de-linking of gas prices from crude oil prices. [Red, yellow, & bold emphasis added.]

Webmaster’s Comments: Calais LNG and Downeast LNG are projects without a purpose.

An unconventional glut (Mar 11) — The Economist, London, England, UK

[I]f it makes it past the planning stages, Kitimat LNG [export terminal] will be one of the continent’s most significant energy developments in decades.

Now North America has an unforeseen surfeit of natural gas. The United States’ purchases of LNG have dwindled. It has enough gas under its soil to inspire dreams of self-sufficiency.

America is still taking some of this LNG, but the exporters’ bonanza is over before it ever really began.

…Qatar, the world’s LNG powerhouse, spent the past decade ramping up supplies aimed at the American market. That now looks like a blunder. [Red, yellow, & bold emphasis added.]

A gas future beyond US (Mar 11) — Upstream Online

A glut of unconventional natural gas supplies from US shale deposits has fundamentally recast the long-term prospects for liquefied natural gas imports that were once considered the linchpin of the nation's energy security, industry executives said at the Ceraweek conference in Houston.

US natural gas reserves are up by a third since 2006, thanks to unconventional gas development including shale gas, with estimated reserves sufficient to supply the US market for nearly 100 years at current rates.

Energy: A foot on the gas (Mar 11) — Financial Times, London, England, UK

A surge in US production has meant that within three years the world has gone from running out of natural gas to being drowned in it.

The implications are profound. Policymakers have faced a trilemma: how to make energy supplies secure, affordable and clean. Now an abundance of gas appears to provide the answer to all three problems at once. In the words of Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, it is a “game changer” – certainly for America, and quite possibly for the world.

Scepticism about the gas revolution is understandable because change has come so fast. Until five years ago, US policymakers and energy executives were fretting about securing enough gas to make up for the decline in the country’s own, sizable production. This year, the US has overtaken Russia to become the world’s biggest gas producer for the first time in nearly a decade. Technical breakthroughs that allow companies to tap gas trapped in its vast shale reserves, until recently considered impervious, have allowed it to shut its doors to imports from distant countries. The industry now thinks it can produce from those reserves for 100 years. [Red & yellow emphasis added.]

Update:CERA Week:US power cos may be forced to embrace shale-gas boom (Mar 11) — (Dow Jones) Capital.gr, Greece

Natural gas prices plunged last year, reaching their lowest level in more than seven years, as producers unlocked vast new supplies of the fuel from dense, natural gas-rich rock formations known as shales. The new supplies created a glut of gas, boosting U.S. gas stockpiles to an all-time high in November. [Red & yellow emphasis added.]

Shale technology boom spurs revolution in gas market — The Peninsula, Doha, Qatar

Houston: A gas market revolution is brewing as extraction technologies on underground rock boost production in North America, where reserves are now seen supplying more than a century of demand.

Although in 2000 gas shale technology only represented 1.0 percent of US natural gas production, today it accounts for 20 percent and could surpass 50 percent by 2030, the IHS CERA report said. [Red, yellow, & bold emphasis added.]

Risk/reward profile for natural gas is improving — Benzinga.com, Dover, DE

According to Goldman Sachs, the risk/reward profile for natural gas is improving “following the pullback in recent weeks. The analysts say, "(1) we expect a potential demand pickup at the expense of coal if prices fall from here; (2) we continue to expect below-consensus LNG imports; and (3) industrial and electricity data points have improved.”

Webmaster’s Comments: This is further evidence that Goldman Sachs expects to lose all its venture capital on its Calais LNG investment.

Venture capitalists put loads of money down on long-odds projects, expecting each project to fail; however, in the event one succeeds, they reap obscene amounts of profit — enough to cover all other projects' losses and to create an additional shower of profit. In the meantime, losses become convenient tax writeoffs.

Editorial: Good day for LNG — The Providence Journal, Providence, RI

Gordon Shearer, the head of Weaver’s Cove Energy, did a fine job on Tuesday in defending the $700 million liquefied-natural-gas terminal proposed for Fall River, a project that he and we agree would help lower our region’s now very high electricity and other energy costs.

Webmaster’s Comments: The cost of LNG-source natural gas imported by Distrigas LNG in Everett, MA, and Northeast Gateway offshore from Gloucester, MA, has been significantly more costly than natural gas imported via the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline. The Boston-area LNG import terminals have been operating at less than 25% of capacity (US terminals have been operating at under 10% of capacity), demonstrating the lack of justification for Hess Energy's Weaver's Cove LNG project.

Editorial: Give Md. the say on LNG [Editorial] (Mar 11) — The Daily Record, Baltimore, MD

This is not a case of “not in my backyard.” Maryland already has one of the nation’s largest LNG import facilities — Dominion Cove Point in Calvert County — which opened in 2003 and was expanded by 80 percent in 2009, all with the support of state and local authorities.

In the case of the proposed Sparrows Point terminal, state and local opposition seems to be entirely justified. But as federal law is now written, the state is virtually powerless .

Webmaster’s Comments: Contrary to pro-LNG BAAs (Build Anything Anywhere), such as Calais LNG and Downeast LNG, there are legitimate reasons to oppose unsafely-sited LNG terminal proposals. Even the world LNG industry has created best practices against doing it (see LNG Terminal Siting Standards Organization).

FERC grants Trunkline LNG's request to place infrastructure enhancement project in service— LNG Law Blog

Yesterday FERC granted Trunkline LNG's request to place its Infrastructure Enhancement Project into full service.

Webmaster’s Comments: Trunkline LNG is at Lake Charles, Louisiana.

LNG deliveries to Golden Pass terminal expected to begin in September 2010 (Mar 11) — LNG Law Blog

The CEO of RasGas told the Wall Street Journal [subscription required] at CERA Week that he expects the first LNG cargo to be delivered to the Golden Pass LNG terminal within a "September time frame."

Senate approves Palin critic to head Alaska gas pipeline office (Mar 11) — The Hill, Washington, DC

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Larry Persily to head a federal office tasked with pushing forward a long-planned – and long-delayed – pipeline project to bring large natural gas supplies from Alaska’s North Slope to markets in the lower 48 states.

Garden Club to hold annual sale — The Hillsboro Argus, Hillsboro, OR

OCAP, Oregon Citizens Against Pipelines, meeting is 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 18, at the Forest Grove Fire Station. Plan to attend this informative meeting to hear the updates on the proposed LNG terminals on the Columbia River and at Waranton on the northern Oregon Coast, along with pipelines cutting through our forests, farmland, private property, streams and rivers.

Federal judge grants preliminary injunction in favor of Oregon LNG in dispute with Port of Astoria — LNG Law Blog

Judge Michael Mosman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon has adopted a federal magistrate's recommendation to grant a preliminary injunction in a contract dispute between Oregon LNG and the Port of Astoria. Judge Mosman's order requires the Port to "take immediate steps to provide the additional thirty-year term specified" under the contract and make the land at issue available to Oregon LNG.

Judge orders Port of Astoria to renew Oregon LNG lease (Mar 11) — The Oregonian, Portland, OR

The decision by the U.S. District Court judge confirmed a November recommendation by a magistrate judge that Astoria's Port should extend both Oregon LNG's sublease and its lease with the Department of State Lands for three decades, despite the Port's concerns about getting locked into a 30-year deal if the terminal isn't built.The Port can appeal the decision to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court.

Court orders Port to renew LNG lease (Mar 11) — The Daily Astorian, Astoria, OR

Also on Thursday, Oregon LNG's attorney sent a letter to the Port's attorney putting the agency on notice that the company plans to file a motion for civil contempt against the Port and its commissioners unless they immediately renew the master lease.

Oregon LNG CEO Peter Hansen said his company has spent more than $500,000 in attorney fees on the breach of contract suit and will be asking the Port to repay that money in addition to millions of dollars in damages.

FERC schedules public meetings on pipeline project associated with Oregon LNG terminal (Mar 11) — LNG Law Blog

FERC has scheduled three public meetings on April 20, 21, and 22, 2010, to hear testimony regarding the Oregon Pipeline, a pipeline associated with the planned Oregon LNG import terminal.

The 100 year natural gas myth (Mar 11) — Seeking Alpha

The Potential Gas Committee (PGC) arrived at similar figures. The 100 year figure originates from their latest report. The PGC figures say nothing about when and at what cost natural gas resources will be produced.

There is a world of difference between proved reserves and probable, possible & speculative resources.

Webmaster’s Comments: It is true that there can be a difference between proved and probable, etc. It is also true that the energy industry has made some spectacular blunders in the past, such as the vast overbuild of LNG import infrastructure.

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