The terminal would be located 14 miles offshore from Arroyo Sequit, near Malibu. Safety hazards and risks concern locals.
By Laura Tate/Editor
An Australian energy company has recently submitted applications to local federal and state agencies to build an offshore, three-tanker facility to import and process liquid natural gas, considered a highly flammable, hazardous material, off the coast of the Ventura County line, just north of Malibu.
The project is estimated to be completed and in operation by 2008, if it passes muster with a myriad of local, state and federal agencies.
The proposal comes at a time when the United States, a leading producer and consumer of natural gas, is facing an estimated 40 percent increase in demand of natural gas in the next 17 years, surpassing expected domestic production by more than 5 trillion cubic feet.
BHP Billiton, Australia’s largest energy company, has filed applications with the U.S. Coast Guard and the California State Lands Commission for a $600 million floating terminal to be located offshore approximately 14 miles southwest of Arroyo Sequit, at Ventura County line.
The facility, called Cabrillo Port, as described by BHP, would be a “floating offshore vessel, similar in shape and design to an ocean-going ship,” with three “spherical storage tanks into which liquefied natural gas (LNG) is pumped from delivering carriers.” The terminal would be anchored to a 22.2-mile pipeline, located at a depth of 2,800 feet, according to a BHP Billiton representative.
LNG is natural gas that has been refrigerated to minus 259 degrees Fahrenheit “at which point it becomes a clear, colorless, and odorless liquid,” according to a July 2003 staff white paper from the California Energy Commission. LNG can be compressed to one six-hundredth of its volume, which allows it to be economically transferred overseas by tanker. The LNG, in a process called “regasification” by BHP, is converted back to its original gaseous state by being pumped through a heat exchange system. After regasification at the proposed Cabrillo Port, the natural gas would then be piped inland through a 22.2-mile underwater pipeline to Ormand Beach, where it would connect with the existing Southern California Gas Company pipeline system.
The transportation and storage of LNG, according to some, is a danger that could expose residents of the coast to vapor clouds that could be released by accident or by an act of terrorism. If LNG comes into contact with any warmer surface such as air or water, it vaporizes, forming a cloud, which could ignite if the concentration of the natural gas is between 5 and 15 percent (by volume) when mixed with air. Furthermore, “spilled LNG disperses faster on the ocean than on land because there is limited possibility for containment,” and LNG vaporizes more quickly on water, states the Energy Commission report.
However, Steven Meheen, Cabrillo Port project manager for BHP Billiton, said the likelihood of a spill is very remote.
Tim Riley, a consumer protection advocate and personal injury lawyer from Oxnard, stated in an Aug. 24 column for the Ventura County Star, “LNG facilities, tankers and pipelines are vulnerable to major industrial accidents, earthquakes and terrorism, and they would pose realistic danger to our community. Tankers are approximately 950 feet long … they hold 20 billion gallons of natural gas. Release of that enormous volume of gas would provide devastating power for mass destruction.”
The Oxnard City Council had conducted a risk assessment study on a similar LNG import facility proposal in the mid-’70s, considering safety risks under worst-case scenarios, which showed up to 70,000 casualties if a LNG accident would occur there. Citizens opposed the project , but the LNG proposal was dropped anyway after increasing natural gas supplies made it uneconomical.
Malibu resident Hans Laetz, who learned of the proposed Cabrillo facility after reading a business story in the New York Times, said in a phone interview, “I personally think that, in all honesty, this is the biggest threat to the safety of Malibu residents since the DWP wanted to build a nuclear power plant in Latigo Canyon.”
Meheen said Billiton, which has offshore LNG facilities in Australia and the U.K., has an “extremely good” environmental and safety record. “[We] really haven’t had any problems,” he said.
Meheen said the company views “it as a very good product for California,” which would diminish the state’s reliance on heavy fossil fuels that cause pollution, and would serve to moderate energy supplies in the market.
The worst liquid natural gas incident took place in Cleveland, Ohio in 1944. The East Ohio Gas Company built the plant in 1941 and added an additional tank in 1944, using a steel alloy that had low nickel content, a key component in two of three types of LNG storage tanks, according to the Energy Commission. The tank failed, with the LNG spilling into the street and in the sewer and storm drain system, resulting in an explosion and fire that killed 128 people.
As written in the Energy Commission report, a failure of modern day tanks “could release an enormous volume of LNG … with potentially disastrous consequences. However, the design of modern storage facilities has improved from earlier designs.”
BHP states, in a press release regarding the proposed Cabrillo Port, that all its LNG carriers are designed with double hulls, with the primary tank composed of nickel, stainless steel or aluminum alloy. The secondary tank made “of similar material serves as a barrier in the unlikely event of rupture or leakage.”
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) is responsible for monitoring LNG terminals and carrier ships in U.S. coastal waters. Federal, local and state government permits are needed to build LNG receiving and regasification terminals in California. Federal approval could include the departments of energy, transportation, defense and interior; the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Maritime Administration, as well as others.
On the state level, the California Coastal Commission would have to review plans for any LNG terminal facilities and associated pipelines to make sure they abide by the state’s Coastal Zone Management Plan. Also, the State Lands Commission (SLC) has jurisdiction over land underwater within 3 miles of the coast (a pipeline would run from the offshore tanks to Ormand Beach and therefore would need this approval.)
The state Coastal Conservancy’s permission would also be needed, as the proposed pipeline would be run under wetlands to Ormand, over which the conservancy has jurisdiction, according to Cy Oggins, an SLC staff environmental scientist.
Oggins said the U.S. Coast Guard and the SLC would be working together to hire a consultant to prepare environmental impact reports and statements regarding the Cabrillo Port project. Public hearings will take place and comments taken into account in drafting documents that would address safety and environmental concerns.
The Energy Commission staff wrote that it believes approximately 100 permits could be required for an LNG import facility in California.
Currently, there are four LNG receiving and regasification terminals in the U.S., but none are located on the West Coast. Several other terminals are proposed for other locations in the U.S. and in Baja.
More information can be obtained on the Cabrillo project, as well as notifications of public hearings, by logging on to www.slc.ca.gov.