By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Apr. 6 -- Esperanza Energy LLC, formed in March by Tidelands Oil & Gas Corp., San Antonio, is evaluating feasibility of a deepwater LNG terminal at an undetermined site as far as 12 miles off California.
Tidelands said Esperanza has assembled a team of LNG, environmental, and legal consultants to conduct the study.
The proposal joins a list of LNG projects proposed for California and northern Mexico, not all of which will be built:
-- Sempra LNG began construction in March on the Energia Costa Azul terminal in Baja California, Mex. Sempra says the facility is on schedule to be operational by early 2008 (OGJ Online, Oct. 26, 2005).
-- Woodside Natural Gas Inc. is seeking permits for its OceanWay Secure Energy project 28 miles off Los Angeles. The project will involve an underwater buoy that would connect to specially designed vessels, which would offload regasified LNG into a subsea pipeline (OGJ Online, Mar. 20, 2005).
-- Australia's BHP Billiton Ltd. has applied for permits for the $550 million Cabrillo Port floating LNG project 21.5 miles off Ventura County (OGJ, Nov. 17, 2003, p. 39). It would involve a permanently moored floating, storage, and regasification unit (800 MMcfd), traditional LNG storage tanks, and a subsea, 30-in. pipeline to shore near Oxnard Calif.
-- Houston-based Crystal Energy LLC's Clearwater Port project would use the existing Grace oil platform 11 mi. off Ventura County as the site of an LNG terminal (OGJ Online, Nov. 3, 2003).
-- Chevron Corp. is looking at sites for LNG import terminals in northern and southern California and planning a terminal 8 miles off Tijuana, adjacent the Coronado Islands (OGJ, June 14, 2004, pp. 22, 26).
-- ConocoPhillips and Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary Sound Energy Solutions last year formed SES Terminal LLC to jointly build an LNG import terminal at Long Beach, Calif., by 2009 (OGJ Online, May 18, 2005).