Anonymous - 8-19-2004 at 11:52 PM
http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413,87~11271~2...
By James Brooke
New York Times
TOKYO -- Russian liquefied natural gas would be shipped across the Pacific to help power California under a contract that is in "very, very advanced"
negotiations, according to a corporate executive on Sakhalin, the island that is Russia's new energy production center in the Pacific.
The gas would go to a terminal in northern Mexico from a plant on Sakhalin that is to open in 2007, becoming Russia's first plant to chill natural gas
for shipping, according to Andy Calitz, commercial director of the Sakhalin Energy Investment Co., a production consortium led by Royal Dutch/Shell.
Although occasional tankers of oil have crossed the Pacific this summer, sailing from Sakhalin to Hawaii and Alaska, the new deal would give a big
lift to faltering efforts by Russia and the United States to cooperate on energy.
"We are prepared to ship gas and oil directly to the United States," Alexander Losyukov, Russia's ambassador to Japan, said Tuesday, alluding to the
gas contract, which received official Russian approval last month. "We want to be a reliable supplier, probably more reliable than the Middle East."
The buyer, a Shell-Sempra Energy joint venture, is expected to give final approval to the contract in September.
By December, this group expects to break ground on a $600 million regasification plant in Mexico.
The plant in Ensenada, about 80 miles south of San Diego, would turn superchilled liquid into gas to be moved by pipeline to northern Mexico and
Southern California.
The plant is to be ready in 2007, the year that the Sakhalin plant would be ready on the Asian side of the Pacific.
"We offer a much lower shipping rate," Calitz said Wednesday by telephone from Sakhalin, noting that the new plant will be only a 12-day sail from
Mexico, compared with 20 days from Australia or 27 days from Qatar. "It's also a political decision. Where in the world do you want your energy to
flow from? From Qatar or Indonesia? Or from Russia or Australia?"
That issue was addressed in June by U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham during a visit to Moscow. "Our goal is to diversify our access to energy
exports from around the world," he said.
Mexitron - 8-20-2004 at 06:27 AM
If gas prices keep rising I don't think those LNG terminals will look so ugly to people anymore.....
Safety first?
whodat54321 - 8-20-2004 at 06:33 PM
I just hope those Russian ships transporting LNG are safer than their nuke subs were. Those ships are floating bombs if they leak, with nuclear blast
size potential.