ROBBINSTON – A plan to build a $400 million liquefied natural gas facility on the south side of Mill Cove near U.S. Route 1 was unveiled Monday by developers not connected with the Oklahoma group that hopes to build a similar facility at Pleasant Point.

Downeast LNG has purchased a four-year option on an 80-acre site at Mill Cove. “Of the 80 acres we will use about 30,” Downeast LNG Vice President Robert Wyatt of Cary, N.C., said Monday. The company’s president is Dean Girdis of Washington, D.C.

The project’s financial backer is Kestrel Energy Partners LLC, an oil and gas private equity investment firm based in New York. Kestrel Energy and Girdis are the owners of the project.

Kestrel’s controlling shareholder is Samson Oil and Gas N.K., an investment corporation registered in Australia.

There now are two competing LNG developers hoping to build terminals Down East.

Oklahoma-based Quoddy Bay LLC has partnered with the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point in planning to build a $200 million facility on reservation land near Eastport. Rather than building storage tanks at the 15-acre site, the developer plans a system that would convert the liquefied fuel back into gas as soon as it is pumped off tankers docked at the terminal pier.

Quoddy Bay’s president is Donald Smith, who owns a cogeneration plant in Oklahoma. His son Brian is the project manager.

The Robbinston plan would consist of an LNG storage tank, processing equipment, a new pier and several small support buildings. The company hopes to employ approximately 300 people during the construction phase and more than 50 people when the facility becomes operational in about five years.

“Commercially, I know what LNG suppliers want. They were my clients,” Girdis said. “so I know what they are looking for in a project. If you look at all these distant terminals, … they are looking for a place to bring LNG to fit in a tank and store it because it’s a security and supply issue in terms of having a ship that can quickly come in, offload it and [go] out,” he said.

The Quoddy Bay project would require the ships to remain in port three to six days.

Unlike Quoddy Bay, which entered into an agreement with the tribe and then wasn’t heard from for months, Downeast LNG plans to hold information meetings over the next few weeks not only in Robbinston, but also in surrounding communities as well as New Brunswick to outline the details of its project, Girdis said.

“The burden is on the developer,” Girdis said. “It’s for us to go out there and talk to people and try to answer their questions and address their concerns and keep them informed of what the project is. In the absence of that, human reaction is understandable.”

The company plans to open an office in Calais. “We have a 100 percent open-door policy,” Wyatt said.

Because of the magnitude of the project, Girdis said, his company would assume 95 percent of the tax burden in Robbinston and expects to pay at least $5 million in local, county and state taxes. “We will pay about $600,000 to Washington County in taxes,” he said.

It also plans to set up a Washington County Economic Development Trust that would pump at least $500,000 to eastern Washington County development projects. “It is going to be managed by the business leaders,” Girdis said. He said the money would be used for identification of new business ideas, market studies and training. Funds also will be used for low-interest loans and-or starter funds for businesses “to help promote business development,” he said.

Company officials said that after more than a year of research and study, including visits to numerous cities and towns in Maine, the developers settled on Robbinston. The project will require as many as 50 or more permits and a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement before site construction can begin, company officials said.

For more than six months a group that calls itself Save Passamaquoddy Bay has opposed the Pleasant Point project. It also plans to do battle with this new company.

“It just makes matters worse for the fishermen,” opponent Bob Godfrey of Eastport said Monday. “There’ll be more area they can’t fish in. There’ll be more of an eyesore and more potential hazard for everybody who lives in the area along water – all the more reason for us to fight it.”

According to Hoover’s Intelligence, an online financial service, “Kestrel keeps a sharp eye out for both promising and producing oil and gas properties. The company acquires proved developed oil and gas leases, mainly in Wyoming, but also in Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas,” Hoover’s said. “Kestrel’s interests reflect its focus on natural gas.”

Girdis, according to his fact sheet, has 17 years’ experience in economic development and energy. He also served in the Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa, as a business development volunteer. He has 12 years of international consulting and energy project development experience in nearly 30 countries. He has worked for several clients, including national and multinational oil and gas companies.

Wyatt, according to his fact sheet, has been a professional environmental consultant for the past 30 years. His primary expertise is in the strategic and technical management and negotiation of major industrial development environmental permits, and compliance with federal, state and local regulations. Wyatt was the environmental affairs development manager for the Puerto Rico project EcoElectrica LNG Import Terminal and Cogeneration Power Plant.