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Enron Mail |
This afternoon I met with Kurt Lindahl and Jody Crook (Global Energy Markets)
concerning a proposal to bring LNG into California. The project consists of converting an oil tanker into a floating vaporization facility, anchoring it off the coast of California and constructing a subsea pipeline to bring the gas onshore. The facility would have a daily unloading rate of 500,000 mmbtu/d. Approximately 172,000 mmbtu/d would go directly to market, with the remainder being injected into utility storage facilities for ultimate withdrawal prior to arrival of a new shipment of LNG. The goal is to baseload a market of 172,000 mmbtu/d. The project would have a start-up date in early 2003. While other proposals are being considered to bring LNG into California, the Enron proposal is unique in that it is considering onshore gas storage vs offshore LNG storage. Retrofitting the oil tanker takes approximately 18 months. Constructing an offshore LNG storage facility would take 3 years - providing Enron a competitive advantage with respect to timing. To protect this competitive advantage during the development stage of the project, it has been requested that this particular aspect be kept confidential as long as possible. Kurt and Jody have meetings scheduled next week in California with at least two utilities to discuss operational and tariff considerations associated with the utilities' providing storage service. I am providing analysis of SoCalGas's storage tariff and have been requested to review ts reflection in the economic modeling of the project. Other regulatory support I assume would be required with respect to FERC and or CPUC authorizations. Jeff, is this something that can be woven into the overall California Solutions proposal, and, how would this fit into the discussions currently ongoing with respect to adequacy of the California gas delivery infrastucture. As this proposal would deliver gas closer to market (as oppossed to gas coming from the west) some savings in term of capital and fuel could be realized. Kurt has offered to provide a more detailed briefing of the proposal at our request.
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