Freeport-McMoRan Energy has missed its deadline and can no longer build an onshore Alabama pipeline to a longer offshore pipeline that would have brought liquefied natural gas from an import terminal in the Gulf of Mexico, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has ruled.
FERC's order is the latest in a string of commission decisions to cancel import facility authorizations for companies now seeking to export LNG.
Monday's decision vacates a 2006 order that authorized Freeport-McMoRan to build a 36-inch-diameter pipeline in Mobile County, Alabama, to connect the company's proposed LNG import terminal to an interstate pipeline hub at Coden.
The five-mile-long Coden Onshore Pipeline would have been the onshore portion of a 92-mile pipeline from a proposed 1 Bcf/d LNG import terminal 16 miles off Louisiana. The offshore facilities would have been overseen by the Maritime Administration and the Coast Guard. However, the project was never built.
The original FERC order required Freeport-McMoRan to place the facilities in service by May 18, 2009, a deadline that was later extended to May 18, 2012.
"To date, Freeport-McMoRan has still not constructed the pipeline," the commission said. "Thus, authorizations for the project have lapsed. Therefore, we are vacating the certificates and authorizations issued in the 2006 order."
Freeport-McMoRan and its affiliate, Main Pass Energy Hub, have filed separate applications with the Department of Energy to export a total of 3.22 Bcf/d of gas from a proposed LNG export terminal they are now planning to build at the site.
The Energy Department in January approved Main Pass Energy Hub's application to export LNG to free trade agreement countries and on May 24 approved Freeport-McMoRan's FTA application. Freeport-McMoRan also applied to export LNG to non-FTA countries, but that application is still pending.
Freeport-McMoRan started talks with Maritime Administration in October regarding the environmental review for the export project.
