By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Nov. 5 -- Crystal Energy LLC, a division of Houston-based Small Ventures USA LLC, has selected OPE Inc., Houston, to perform conceptual engineering for a proposed $125 million LNG off-loading hub in the Santa Barbara Channel off California.
OPE will develop a floating dock system incorporating its patented SSP moored buoy as a bumper system for LNG tankers approaching the existing fixed offshore platform Grace. Crystal Energy has brokered a 10-40 year lease from a privately owned California oil company Venoco Inc. for long-term use of the platform, pending acquisition of all permits.
The platform, in federal water 11 miles off Ventura County, will serve as the import-regasification point for 200 bcf/year of LNG supplies from sources such as South America, the Pacific Rim, and the Middle East (OGJ Online, Nov. 4, 2003).
An existing pipeline right-of-way connects the platform to shore, and a new, 36-in. pipeline would deliver natural gas to existing onshore facilities. A potable water pipeline also is proposed along the existing pipeline corridor to deliver 40 million gal/year of fresh water from the regasification process to the City of Oxnard, Calif.
OPE anticipates receiving an approval-in-principle by yearend, and plans to have the terminal area ready to accept LNG by 2007.