Despite Claims about Imports, Corporate Connections
Expose Export Future for Proposed Facility Offshore of New York & New
Jersey Coast That Would Devastate the Region
Groups urge companies to come clean about their intent
to export
A triangle of corporate connections makes clear the link between natural gas
imports and exports for the proposed Liberty LNG Port Ambrose facility off the
New York and New Jersey coast. That was
the evidence presented today by Clean Ocean Action, Catskills Citizens for Safe
Energy, and the Coalition of Nassau County Civic Associations, along with many
others in the broadly-based Anti-Liberty LNG coalition.
This coalition called on Liberty LNG’s owners, West Face
Capital (a Cayman Islands investment account), and project lead Roger Whelan,
to come clean on the corporate energy interests of Liberty LNG’s owners that have not been disclosed to the public or to
the federal agencies reviewing the port in the application.
Across the nation, energy companies by the dozen are lining
up to export U.S. domestically produced natural gas – over two dozen companies
have already been granted authorizations by the Department of Energy – and,
under the law governing Port Ambrose simple written permission from the federal
government is all that would be needed to change an import facility license to
an export license.
West Face Capital, and Port Ambrose project lead Roger
Whelan, have thus far failed to disclose a significant interest in another port
– a facility that appears to have been built with Port Ambrose exports in mind. Last November, Roger Whelan announced, on
behalf of West Face Capital, the purchase of “Port Meridian” – a deepwater port of the exact same design as
Port Ambrose. This port, already
approved for construction, anticipated to come online around the same time as
Port Ambrose, would be operated by Höegh LNG – the exact same company and fleet of LNG vessels as Port Ambrose.
Höegh LNG, the partner in operations with West Face Capital,
is the self-proclaimed global leader in floating liquefaction (“FLNG” - the
technology needed to liquefy natural gas on a vessel moored at a Port Ambrose-
and Port Meridian-style “turret buoy”); the Höegh LNG website claims: “no FLNG
service provider has the same competences and capacity” and that Höegh LNG has
invested over 400,000 engineering man-hours in developing this technology.
“West Face Capital bought a facility in the United Kingdom
(a nation starved of natural gas supplies), and a facility in the United States
(a nation where exports are being approved at a staggering rate), and set up Höegh
LNG (a company leading the world in liquefaction at-sea from the same turret
“STL” buoys which would be in place at both Port Ambrose and Port Meridian) to
operate both ports,” summarized Sean
Dixon, Coastal Policy Attorney at Clean Ocean Action. “The evidence clearly points to this Cayman
Island bank account’s plan to send U.S. natural gas overseas through its own
energy bridge.”
“While Port Ambrose and the federal government continue to
claim that the sole intended use of the facility would be imports, reality is
that this is a ‘bait and switch,’” warned
Clean Ocean Action Executive Director Cindy Zipf. “For the American people, our safety, our quality
of life, and our environment, the stage is set for disaster if Port Ambrose is
licensed.”
“Although Port Ambrose is being sold to the public as an LNG
import facility, there is abundant evidence that it will actually be used to
export fracked gas overseas, given that there is no viable market for imported
LNG in New York City or on Long Island - I have no doubt that the current
license application for an LNG import facility is a Trojan horse,” stated
Bruce Ferguson with Catskills Citizens for Safe Energy. “If Port
Ambrose is licensed and used to export fracked gas, the ‘upstream impacts’ of
fracking will devastate a broad swath of the Northeast, leaving Americans with
contaminated drinking water, contaminated air and the destruction of important,
sustainable economic industries such as agriculture and tourism. And for what?
So other countries can be supplied with cheap energy, and so a foreign
corporation can make a killing.”
“Keeping in mind that Nassau's south shore communities are
still struggling to rebuild after Superstorm Sandy, situating an exporting
liquefaction facility less than 19 miles off our southern coast would stress
recovering communities to the breaking point if the facility were to be damaged
by a severe storm, cautioned Claudia Borecky, LNG Port Committee Chair at
Coalition of Nassau Civic Associations. “In recent weeks, LNG
facilities in Yemen were reportedly on Al Queda's target list. Situating
an exporting liquefaction facility at the entrance of one of the busiest
harbors in the United States would place our entire region at risk for a
terrorist attack.”
Comments on the proposal are due Thursday, August 22, 2013, to the
federal docket (USCG-2013-0363-0181) at www.regulations.gov.
Related Links:
1. Read
an article about the sale of Port Meridian by Höegh LNG to West Face Capital
(along with quote from Project Lead Roger Whelan), HERE
2. Read
a story about the sale price of Port Meridian, HERE
3.
See Höegh LNG’s claims about floating
natural gas liquefaction (including at “disconnectable turrets” like those
proposed at both Ports Ambrose and Meridian), HERE
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