FERC may block Williams LNG plant reopening
Date: 17-Dec-01
Country: USA
Author: Tom Doggett
In an order issued late on Thursday, FERC said it would review the national security concerns raised over the LNG plant, which Tulsa, Oklahoma-based energy company Williams Cos. Inc. wants to reopen and expand, and decide by Jan. 22 if the facility's permit should be pulled.
FERC gave its approval in October for restarting the plant despite concerns that the facility could be subject to sabotage that would threaten the nearby nuclear plant owned by Baltimore utility Constellation Energy Group .
Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland has demanded that FERC reconsider its approval order, arguing that it was now too dangerous to have an LNG plant operating so close to a nuclear power plant.
An LNG facility in Boston had been closed by state officials following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Officials feared an LNG tanker entering Boston harbor could be subject to sabotage, causing massive damage.
Williams wants to resume LNG shipments to the Cove Point plant during the second quarter of 2002. The company also plans to build a fifth storage tank at the site that could hold up to 2.5 billion cubic feet of gas.
The Cove Point plant, built in 1974, was bought by Williams last year from Columbia Energy Group, which is now a unit of Indiana-based utility holding company NiSource Inc . The plant stopped importing natural gas in the early 1980s but reopened as a natural gas storage site about 10 years later.
LNG is kept at ultra-cold temperatures and compressed for transport aboard special tankers.
It begins as natural gas in a vapor form. The manufacturing process cools the gas to minus-259 degrees Fahrenheit, changing the gas into a liquid and shrinking it to less than 1/600th of its original size.
LNG, which is odorless and colorless, is then loaded into tankers and shipped to markets, where it is converted back into dry gas for electric power generation or another use as a fuel source.