Bradwood LNG, USA

The Bradwood LNG (Bradwood Landing) project is set to be the first LNG receiving terminal project approved for construction on the Pacific Northwest coast of the US. The LNG facility is being planned by Northern Star Natural Gas LNG of Houston on a 55 acre area of a 420 acre site at Bradwood, which is located about 38 miles along the Columbia River between Astoria and Clatskanie.

The new $600m LNG plant is intended to be built on an old mill site 20 miles east of Astoria, just across the river from Wahkiakum County. NorthernStar will have to bring LNG tankers 38 miles up the river and then unload the liquid gas into two large tanks, warm the fuel back to its gaseous state and send it to market through two new pipelines, one of which would be operated by NorthernStar, the other by Northwest Natural Gas Co.

Federal approval

In September 2008 the project received FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) licence (final environmental impact statement) approval for the basic project (the application was filed with FERC 3.5 years ago and has required the consideration of 50,000 pages of evidence as well as 1,827 public comments). There is opposition to the project from several quarters with the Governor of Oregon, Ted Kulongoski, criticising the federal approval decision and making plans to appeal.

In addition landowners along the route of the intended pipeline could face eminent domain or compulsory purchase on parcels of their land to accommodate the project. NorthernStar still has to secure about twelve more approvals from state and federal agencies, mostly clean air and clean water permits, as well as a Coastal Zone Management Act certificate.

The state of Oregon has been urged by non-profit citizens' group Columbia Riverkeeper, which has filed an appeal with FERC, to refuse the permits and kill off the project. NorthernStar has defended the project by saying that all environmental conditions (109 measures have been imposed by FERC) will be exceeded and that the new LNG terminal is needed to provide a new source of gas for the north-west, where energy prices have increased rapidly in the last few years.

One of the environmental measures involves the screening of the LNG carrier ballast and cooling water intakes to prevent small river fish from being sucked up. In addition there are concerns about the dredging of the river to allow the passage of larger LNG carriers.

The initial project will require dredging operations to remove about 700,000 cubic yards of river-bed material and relocating it to other areas of the river (there will also be a yearly 20,000 cubic yard maintenance dredging required). In addition to environmental considerations there are also security elements to the project that are under consideration by the Department of Homeland Security, the US Coast Guard and local agencies.

The LNG facility in the river will have the big advantage of providing a safe sheltered port.

Construction

NorthernStar has said that the construction of the pipeline will not begin for two years (the LNG facility is expected to begin construction in 2009) and that during that time negotiations will begin with the landowners in Cowlitz County to purchase the parcels of land they require (Clatsop County may enforce rules against pipelines crossing parkland).

The entire project is expected to be on-stream by 2012, increasing the supply of gas to the area. The LNG receiving terminal will have a peak send-out capacity of 1.3bn ft³ of natural gas per day; the two storage tanks will be full containment tanks for LNG. The inner tank will be constructed from 9% nickel steel and the outer tank of reinforced concrete with a reinforced dome roof. The design of the tank will increase safety as all piping will enter through the top of the tank with none through the sidewall or the bottom of the inner or outer tanks.

There will also be a 36.3 mile LNG pipeline from the site to Port Westward across Clatsop, Columbia and Cowlitz counties and then under the Columbia River connecting to the Williams Northwest pipeline at Kelso, WA. Along the pipeline route there will be interconnections and meter stations to deliver natural gas to the Georgia-Pacific Wauna paper mill, Northwest Natural Gas Corporation intrastate system, the Portland General Electric Beaver power plant, and Williams Northwest.

The project will create more than 450 jobs over the three years of construction and then 65 permanent jobs contributing about $7.8m in annual taxes to Clatsop County.