LNG company seeks delay for application

Quoddy Bay LNG is formally requesting another extension from state regulators due to lingering uncertainty over details of the company’s plans for a liquefied natural gas facility in Perry.

Last week, Quoddy Bay officials announced that they planned either to apply for an extension or request permission to withdraw their application pending before the Maine Board of Environmental Protection.

BEP members indicated last Thursday that they would prefer to delay consideration of the application rather than have to start the review from scratch if the company withdrew. But board members also expressed frustration that Quoddy Bay’s application and another from a competitor, Downeast LNG, have been plagued by so many delays.

In a letter submitted Wednesday to the BEP, Quoddy Bay project manager Brian Smith requested that the pre-hearing conferences on the application be delayed until January 2009. If the company is unable to meet that timeline, Smith wrote, it will withdraw and then re-file when the application is ready for a full review.

“The ultimate purpose of our efforts is to present the board, the interested parties and the public with the most complete and accurate application we can,” Smith wrote to BEP Chairman Ernest Hilton.

Quoddy Bay has cited a number of factors for the delay, including uncertainty over an LNG supplier and the possibility of co-locating pipelines with Downeast LNG and a third potential developer. Identifying the source of the LNG supply would dictate whether the company needs a special facility to mix nitrogen with the liquefied gas to meet federal import standards.

A federal court also is considering a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs by members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe angry that tribal leaders negotiated an agreement with Quoddy Bay. The bureau signed off on the tribe’s agreement to allow an LNG facility at Pleasant Point.

Quoddy Bay’s primary competitor, Downeast LNG, has withdrawn its state application for a facility in nearby Robbinston and plans to re-file. A third company has proposed an LNG facility near Calais but has not filed any applications.

kmiller@bangordailynews.net

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