Corpus Christi LNG export project gets approval

   Pangea LNG (North America) Holdings, LLC, the Woodland’s, Texas-based subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Pangea LNG B.V, said Monday the Energy Department has granted it permission to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) nations from Corpus Christi Bay. 
   Pangea said it was granted “long-term, multi-contract authorization” to export up to 8 million metric tons per year produced from domestic gas fields for a 25-year term.
   Pangea LNG has also filed an application with DOE requesting authorization to export LNG to any country with which the United States does not have a free trade agreement in effect. That application, which was filed in December, is pending.
   DOE approval of FTA authorization is part of the regulatory process necessary to develop Pangea LNG’s new LNG export terminal on a 550-acre site. The site is located on the 45-foot deep La Quinta Ship Channel which is part of the Port of Corpus Christi, the sixth busiest U.S. seaport in terms of tonnage. 
   FTA countries covered by the DOE authorization include South Korea, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Oman, Panama, Peru and Singapore.
   In January, the Australian company Magnolia LNG announced plans to build a $2.2 billion natural gas liquefaction production and export facility at the Port of Lake Charles in Southwest Louisiana that would roduce 4 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas per year, and construction would begin in 2015 pending the company’s attainment of permits and final financing.
   LNG exports are controversial.
   For example, an opponent of LNG exports, the Sierra Club in a recent report Look Before the LNG Leap, contends the United States is “sleepwalking through one of the biggest energy policy decisions of ourt time. Even as billions of dollars in investment capital are marshaled to support an ever-growing wave of export proposals, the federal agencies in charge of protecting the public interest have failed even to consider the environmental implications of exporting a large amount of the domestic gas supply – including the intensified fracking needed to support exports. Meanwhile, trade negotiators risk stripping away DOE’s discretion ever to properly manage these problems, even if it does finally analyze and disclose them. ”
   But a report by the accounting and consulting firm Deloitte titled Made in America: The Economic Impact of LNG Exports from the United States dismisses many of the objections raised to LNG exports, saying among other things that “the modest price impact from proposed export volumes is unlikely to cause the U.S. to be uncompetitive in global markets.” – Chris Dupin