Quoddy Bay LNG applies for gas terminal permit

Quoddy Bay LNG LLC became the first company formally to apply for a liquefied natural gas terminal permit in Maine when it submitted boxes of applications, reports and supporting documents to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission offices in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

Quoddy Bay submitted its formal application almost exactly one year after it initiated the pre-filing process with FERC in December 2005. Quoddy Bay proposes to construct and operate a 2 billion-cubic-feet-per-day liquefied natural gas import and regasification facility, including a pier and two vessel berths, at the Passamaquoddy Tribe’s Pleasant Point Reservation in Washington County.

The company also plans to build an office and warehouse on the reservation’s Split Rock, a storage facility in Perry, and a 35.8-mile-long natural gas export pipeline to transport natural gas from the terminal to the existing pipeline of Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline LLC.

“The Quoddy Bay LNG Project has reached an important milestone and is significantly closer to providing the Northeast with environmentally clean natural gas,” Quoddy Bay LNG President Donald M. Smith said in a prepared statement. “We are also one step closer to providing a critical economic stimulus to Washington County including important lease revenues to the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Indian Reservation.”

Quoddy Bay has finished the pre-application process required by FERC, which included consulting with local residents and other stakeholders, identifying security, safety and environmental issues, and preparing environmental resource reports.

FERC is expected to make a final decision on the case in 10 to 18 months, according to FERC spokeswoman Tamara Young-Allen.

Within a few days, FERC will issue a notice on its Web site that Quoddy Bay’s application has been received. FERC will then accept public comment and motions to intervene for approximately 20 days, Young-Allen said. FERC also will get to work on its Environmental Impact Statement, which it will draft in cooperation with the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The State Planning Office has said it will file a motion to intervene in the case, meaning it wants to be legally recognized as an official party in the proceedings and can appeal FERC’s final decision on the case. Director Martha Freeman said the State Planning Office is not necessarily opposed to LNG projects in Maine.

However, Quoddy Bay LNG and a second company, Downeast LNG, which hopes to build a facility in Robbinston, continue to generate controversy in Washington County.

“Neither project has any chance of actually succeeding. Both have insurmountable obstacles,” wrote Bob Godfrey, spokesman for the Save Passamaquoddy Bay 3-Nation Alliance, in an e-mail sent to the Bangor Daily News this week. The Save Passamaquoddy Bay 3-Nation Alliance is opposed to both LNG projects.

Godfrey wrote that he expects both proposed LNG facilities to fail the state’s permitting process and U.S. federal, Canadian and international environmental requirements.

Quoddy Bay project manager Brian Smith, son of president Donald M. Smith, disagrees.

“We’ve been through two full draft submittals and subsequent reviews with FERC and state agencies and individuals, and so far all of the comments and questions we’ve received have indicated that the project has a very good chance of being approved,” Brian Smith said.

In conjunction with filing its formal application, Quoddy Bay LNG also has announced that it has signed an agreement with a private landowner in Perry for the option to purchase a 30-acre parcel. If FERC approves Quoddy Bay LNG and the company receives enough financial backing from investors, the site, located at the corner of U.S. Route 1 and Route 190, will be used to provide temporary lodging for construction workers who will build the LNG terminal and associated infrastructure, said Brian Smith.

For more information on the permitting process for LNG terminals, visit FERC’s Web site at www.ferc.gov. To read documents related to the case, follow directions under the e-filing link.