Posted on 02/10/2011 6:24:44 AM PST by thackney
ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil Corp. confirmed Wednesday that they plan to close the Kenai liquefied natural gas plant after more than 40 years in operation, citing market changes.
Dan Clark, manager of Cook Inlet assets for ConocoPhillips Alaska, told The Associated Press the company could not secure the sales and supply agreements necessary to keep the plant in operation beyond April or May.
...
Exports from the plant, located at Nikiski, began exports in 1969. Clark said all exported liquefied natural gas, or LNG, went to Japan.
At the peak, he said, about 64 billion cubic a year was exported. But volumes have been falling.
(Excerpt) Read more at fuelfix.com ...
Hard to compete with Alaska gas against the rising tide of shale gas.
How about we build an LNG terminal in California and use that NG domestically? That would help offset shortages due to the bad policies in New Mexico.
LOL. Yeah, right. “It might blow up.” 40 years of safe operating experience isn’t enough for the wackos.
I know the market at present isn't there, but for the future, and something/anything to eventually solve the super high energy prices AK deals with. So many Alaskans (even conservative Alaskans) are convinced that political corruption have derailed the will of the people time and time again. Pipeline has become just like another road to Nome.
For those 2 groups to go to a domestic supply as a national goal via national security would nto be a bad thing, all we need is leadership and a national will....
This is a very small plant and the Cook Inlet, the source of the gas for this plant is running low and fast.
LNG is not a cheap method to trasnport gas and for very small volumes it is not worth the expense to build the facility.
You need more pipelines. The lower 48 is not short on gas sources, only pipelines and permission to drill and produce.
That would involve building and paying for a pipeline that will cost 10's of billions of dollars. The economics isn't there yet.
I don't think the market is big enough to support the cost, yet.
However, for years they have been trucking a small amount from the Nikiski LNG plant to Fairbanks. There was talk of doing the same from the North Slope. This would be a relatively less expensive way to start building the market in Central Alaska until the demand was large enough for the pipeline.
For a low cost start, dismantle the closing Nikiski and move it to the larger source of Natural Gas on the North Slope. Update it for less cost than new, although the lower design temperature may require significant vessel replacement cost. The trucks already exist and so does the small market.
A larger gas source gives the incentive to build more users of the gas. This is probably the only economic way to get started.
An LNG terminal was debated for Long Beach and other locations on the SoCal coast for over 10 years. It was to import (IIRC) Middle Eastern gas. The kooks wouldn’t allow it to be built and it finally faded away. If it had been built, it could have received the small amount of gas from Alaska as well as the ME.
Only after the contracts to Japan expire.
The conversion kits are not that expensive but the tanks are and refueling stations are few and far between hence the dual fuel requirement.
What would be very helpful it to allow the many “private (aka utility)” refueling stations and government stations to service the public which would have the side benefit of offloading some of their operating costs and generating a profit center.
Given the USA has ample supplies of NG and absolutely huge potential supplies of frozen methane at an easy 300’ drilling depth the only reason, given the very shaky oil supply, I can see is the government does not want us to be energy independent regardless of what they say.
Closing the Straights of Hormuz will far greater affect others in the world than us. It would affect world prices very quickly and would not be tolerated by anyone very long, including suppliers like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and those with a little sense in Iran.
Aw, cheese. My gas bill is already astronomical. :o(
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