Liquefied gas port plan advances
10/8/2006, 12:25 p.m. CT
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Efforts to get McMoRan Exploration Co.'s proposed liquefied natural gas port licensed after a $30 million modification appear to be going more smoothly the second time around.
"We're very confident that we'll get the permit, especially since there's no opposition," said McMoRan spokesman Bill Collier of the project called the Main Pass Energy Hub, to be built 16 miles east of the mouth of the Mississippi River.
At a public hearing in New Orleans last week, just three people spoke, and all were in favor of the $1 billion port, which is expected to bring thousands of construction jobs and at least 100 permanent jobs. Hearings held last week in Alabama and Mississippi drew no public comment.
That's a change from previous hearings on the issue which drew strong opposition because McMoRan intended to use an open-loop system that required the use of water from the Gulf of Mexico warm the supercooled liquefied gas. Environmentalists said the method would kill an unknown amount of sea life, including fish and fish larvae.
That opposition eventually led Gov. Kathleen Blanco to veto the project.
"We aren't anti-LNG, we're simply in favor of moving forward with the technology that is guaranteed to help protect our already depleted fish population in the gulf," said Aaron Viles, campaign director with the gulf Restoration Network, which has fought open-loop LNG terminals.
McMoRan modified its plans to resurrect the project and now will use a closed-loop system in which some of the imported gas, rather than seawater, will be used to warm the liquefied gas.
The change will cost McMoRan $30 million to modify the terminal and $25 million a year in lost revenue from the natural gas it will use in the closed-loop system, Collier said.
Blanco and the governors of Mississippi and Alabama have 45 days to approve or veto the port. At that point, the Maritime Administration can approve or deny the port, but could wait another 45 days, until Jan. 3, to make its decision, said Mark Prescott, chief of deepwater ports for the U.S. Coast Guard.
If the LNG port wins approval, McMoRan will negotiate contracts for the imported gas and then begin final design, engineering and construction of the port, all of which will take three years, Collier said.
The project would reconfigure platforms McMoRan previously used for sulfur mining to allow ships to dock and unload natural gas. The port will use salt domes to store the natural gas.
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Information from: The Times-Picayune, http://www.timespicayune.com/
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