News
Liberty Natural Gas Holds Briefing On Another LNG Proposal
By Ryan Fennell
Trenton - While the Atlantic Sea Island Group is in the midst of a public scoping period for the development of an Environmental Impact Statement by the U.S. Coast Guard and Maritime Administration (MARAD) to determine whether or not their proposed man-made island facility for the importation of Liquefied Natural Gas receives licensing, Liberty Natural Gas has a proposal of their own that has yet to be submitted.
On Monday, Liberty Natural Gas held a briefing on its proposed project at the State House in Trenton.
Earlier this year Liberty launched a massive public information campaign to address concerns over LNG and for the public to meet with representatives by setting up a community information center on Main Street in Asbury Park.
Although Liberty might be importing LNG to the same general area as ASIG's proposed facility, it would be done in a different manner.
"There is no storage, no barge, and no island," said Jason Goldstein, Chief Operating Officer of Liberty Natural Gas. "We want to be crystal clear why we are the project of choice. We want to make sure everybody knows the facts and is comfortable with what we are doing and comfortable with who we are."
Liberty is proposing an underwater turret system that will connect directly to LNG tankers and pump re-gasified LNG directly into an underground pipeline.
The re-gasification process will take place onboard the tankers, which eliminates the need for a barge or island for storage of the imported LNG.
According to Goldstein, Liberty has a dedicated source for the importation of LNG located in Trinidad and Tobago. By shipping the LNG to the region directly, it would by-pass the interstate pipeline system reducing delivery costs by 20 percent Goldstein said.
Goldstein also noted that the project would not require public funding, as it would be built with $750 million from private infrastructure investment.
The project would also create over 250 construction jobs with approximately $600 million in construction contracts.
The underwater turret system would be located 16.5 miles off the coast of Asbury Park and outside major shipping lanes. According to Goldstein, the tankers used to supply this project would also be able to be powered on boiled-off LNG.
After the LNG is returned to a gaseous state on board the tankers it is offloaded into the connector buoy and pumped directly into a pipeline underneath the sea floor. The project would require approximately 50 miles of 36-inch pipeline buried at a minimum of three feet below the sea floor surrounded by at least four inches of cement coating.
According to Goldstein, the U.S. Coast Guard favors Liberty's proposal.
Jens Kaalstad, president of Advanced Production and Loading Inc. was at the information session to provide a brief history of the technology.
Currently there are two such LNG facilities in the United States, one 15 miles off the coast of Boston and another in the Gulf of Mexico. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the underwater turret system in the Gulf was the only facility able to continue to supply the region with natural gas.
The technology was developed in the North Sea in the early 1990s. The first of its kind was operational in 1994 for the importation of oil. According to Kaalstad, the area in which this North Sea facility operates routinely experiences the equivalent of Category 2 hurricane winds and Category 4 waves during the winter months. Since 1995 there has only been four hours of downtime.
"The main message here is that it works," Kaalstad said.
According to Steven Some, a spokesman for Liberty Natural Gas, this project has received support and interest from various labor unions and would put New Jersey ahead of the line where it comes to energy costs when the economic recovery of the nation occurs.
"It is an ongoing project of ours to continue to inform the public," said Some. "We wanted to give the people in Trenton a chance to hear about the project and ask questions. We are trying to reach out to as many groups as we can."
Liberty forecasts submitting their application later this spring, and projects the LNG facility to be operational in 2012.
