Excelerate veers away from Florida, California

Feb. 22, 2007
Excelerate Energy is deemphasizing plans for Florida and California LNG ship regasification projects in favor of other international opportunities proving to be more viable.

Uchenna Izundu
International Editor

LONDON, Feb. 22 -- Excelerate Energy is deemphasizing plans for Florida and California LNG ship regasification projects in favor of other international opportunities proving to be more viable.

"We are not actively pursuing those right now," Rob Bryngelson, vice-president of development and downstream services, told OGJ of the ship projects.

Excelerate had proposed developing 600 MMcfd-1 bcfd of regasification capacity on an Energy Bridge deepwater port, dubbed Pacific Gateway, off northern California by 2009. Energy Bridge regasification vessels (EBRVs) can regasify LNG onboard.

Bryngelson said Excelerate would not pursue the plan because there were too many LNG import proposals in California and because of the distances between gas sources and markets.

"We'd be looking at places like Asia-Pacific to bring gas to market. We struggle with the competitiveness of that market because US West Coast prices are not that high right now," Bryngelson said. "The Asian markets have been higher priced."

Alaska could be a source of gas for California, he added. But the federal Jones Act specifies that cargos moving from one US port to another must be carried on a US-flagged ship with a US crew.

"There are no US LNG carriers," Bryngelson said.

In Florida, Excelerate had hoped to develop 400 MMcfd of regasification capacity on an EBRV for 2009.

"There are technical challenges," Bryngelson explained. "You also have to work with Florida Power & Light, and we've never really been able to get on terms of a transaction so we've focused on other things. We'd love to do a project in Florida, but our priorities have taken us elsewhere."

The company is considering opportunities in continental Europe and Asia, particularly Pakistan, where it hopes can start operations in Port Qasim in mid-2008 using its GasPort technology. GasPort is a dockside regasification application—a land-based manifold that connects to a high-pressure gas arm on Excelerate's EBRVs.

Excelerate managers were impressed with the speed with which UK officials handled their UK GasPort project in Teesside and will share their experiences with US officials to urge them to change their regulatory practices (OGJ Online, Feb. 20, 2007).

"All we want is just a clear set of guidelines for us to do our projects; it doesn't matter how detailed or lengthy they are," Bryngelson said. "It's hard when you follow the guidelines and then find that someone changes the end point. We were able to do things quickly in the UK because there were very clear guidelines; there was certainty in the regulatory process. The US has not done a lot of LNG projects until recently, and so there has been a lot of uncertainty."

Contact Uchenna Izundu at [email protected].