| Tue 4 Jan 2005, 12:28 | | BHP Billiton plans gas terminal off LA |
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BHP Billiton plans gas terminal off LA
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Resources Editor
GLOBAL resources company BHP Billiton is planning to anchor a new gas terminal off the coast of Los Angeles to help resolve California`s growing energy shortage.
The project, called Cabrillo Port, is expected to cost up to $600m, and is due to be up and running by 2009.
BHP Billiton`s president of gas and power, Rebecca McDonald, told analysts last month that the facility could supply California with 1,5- billion cubic feet of gas a day.
Initially, however, it would churn out about 800-million cubic feet a day equivalent to 15% of California`s daily requirements. The terminal will have storage capacity of 6billion cubic feet of gas.
The gas will be transported to the offshore facility, probably from Australia, in the form of liquefied natural gas, and will then be converted back into gas.
The gas will be pumped along two 22,4km pipelines to shore, close to the coastal town of Oxnard, and will then connect with the southern Californian gas grid.
`This offshore facility would be similar in size to an ocean-going ship,` said McDonald. `It would be permanently moored, but could move through 360 degrees.`
She said obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals was a lengthy process, involving public hearings.
`California has a vocal environmental community, but the hearings have gone pretty well so far.`
McDonald said there was a good argument for the project as `there is no question that California has a current problem with the supply of natural gas`. She said over the recent Thanksgiving weekend in the US, when millions of Americans cooked their traditional roast turkeys, the state had ran perilously close to a supply shortage.
BHP Billiton also says that natural gas is friendlier to the environment and more efficient than some rival fuel sources.
`However, the ability to meet this demand from traditional sources of natural gas in North America is becoming more and more constrained, with resources in existing domestic natural gas fields diminishing and new discoveries being unable to meet market needs,` BHP Billiton said in the latest report on its petroleum business, which was published this month.
