All This Talk Of Liquid Natural Gas Export: Political Theater

Updates

March 26, 2014: some background links --

• coal export terminal at Jordan Cove never came to fruition
• the Jordan Cove LNG story in more detail

Original Post 

Flashback, February 26, 2014: President Obama said he would make a decision on Keystone XL pipeline "in a couple of months."

It's been a month. One more month to go. LOL.

On another note, the US approves a permit for a seventh (7th) LNG export terminal. The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

The Obama administration's approval of a seventh application to export natural gas drew cautious praise from a number of U.S. lawmakers who have been putting pressure on President Barack Obama to allow more gas exports as a way to weaken Russia's power over Ukraine.

"I am proud that the U.S. Department of Energy has heeded my calls to speed its approval of pending liquefied-natural-gas export terminals," Sen. Mark Udall, (D., Colo.) said in a statement following the Energy Department's announcement Monday that it was granting conditional approval for Jordan Cove, a proposed project to export natural gas out of Oregon.

"This newly approved LNG [liquefied natural gas] terminal is a step in the right direction, but there is more to do. I will keep fighting to ensure the White House continues to prioritize the development and approval of additional natural-gas export facilities."

Mr. Udall's statement is notable because he is one of a number of Democrats facing a tough re-election fight this year, and Republicans have targeted his seat as they try to capture a majority of the Senate. Mr. Udall hasn't always been so outspoken on this issue and he is widely viewed as aligned with environmentalists and renewable-energy interests just as much, if not more, than the natural-gas sector.

Mr. Udall will face Rep. Cory Gardner, (R., Colo.), who recently announced his candidacy.

Jordan Cove is the seventh application, of more than 20, to receive the Energy Department's conditional approval, which allows the project to move forward but doesn't guarantee it will.

Only one project has final federal approval to export natural gas and it is expected to begin doing so in late 2015. Before Jordan Cove and the other five projects that have won conditional approval can be built, they must get final clearance from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

This is all political theater. Putin's move into the Crimean is measured in hours; his move into the Ukraine is measured in days, maybe weeks. Meanwhile, the earliest any of our natural gas will be exported is late 2015. This is all political theater.

However, as I told Don, I think this is incredibly ironic. Obama is doing everything he can to slow down fossil fuel development in this country and now it's Putin that's finally forcing Obama to approve some LNG exports.

In fact there are something like 20 permits waiting to be approved and the new DOE secretary said some time ago that he was going to expedite LNG permit approval, so Obama is simply using the Crimean "crisis" as cover for approving more LNG permits. Approving #7 is probably not that big a deal. It will probably be a drop in the barrel compared to all the NG that Russia could export/embargo if they want.

But I get a kick out of this. Things are moving quickly, all of a sudden, internationally. It looks like Mr Putin will invigorate the fossil fuel sector in this country -- even as Mr Obama keeps trying to slow it down.

The next thing we will see is the "need to approve the Keystone in light of the Russian aggression."