The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on a statement said that it is not able to complete reviews of two planned LNG export terminals in Louisiana until an independent regulatory body finishes its environmental assessments of the projects.
Over the past several months, the Department of Energy (DOE) has received questions regarding the status of various applications to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to non-Free Trade Agreement (FTA) countries and recently, in particular, about the status of the Venture Global CP2 LNG, LLC (CP2) and Commonwealth LNG, LLC (Commonwealth) applications.
According to DOE, on 27 November 27 following decisions of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued notices with the schedule for supplemental Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for the CP2 project and its associated pipeline (Venture Global CP Express, LLC), and the Commonwealth project.
The FERC notices require that each EIS address issues related to FERC’s analysis of the cumulative air quality impacts specific to the CP2 project’s NO2 and PM2.5 emissions and the Commonwealth project’s NO2 emissions, which could impact local communities. Additionally, FERC issued an order setting aside, in part, its earlier authorization order for the CP2 project, and explained that “no authorization to proceed with construction of the CP2 LNG Project or CP Express Pipeline Project will be issued until the Commission issues a further merits order.”
Relying on DOE policy and consistent with precedent during the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations for the program that governs export of domestically-sourced natural gas as LNG to non-FTA countries, DOE cannot complete its review of these two applications—CP2 and Commonwealth – until after FERC’s completion of the environmental reviews and issuance of final merits orders.
