In order to secure rights to property owners’ property via eminent domain, LNG pipeline developers must show the connecting facility is only for import, not export. Bob Braddock, of Jordan Cove Energy Partners, LLC was recently quoted in the Platts LNG Daily as saying Jordan Cove, Coos County Oregon could convert to an export terminal.

This is what Braddock has told The World newspaper regarding reports the proposed Jordan Cove LNG import facility

The project manager of the proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas terminal hastened Wednesday to disclaim a report that his company was considering changing the terminal into an export facility…’No, it’s a stupid idea,'” he said…

Bob Braddock said he did tell the energy newsletter Platts LNG Daily that his company had entertained inquiries about using the facility to convert domestic gas to LNG for export.

‘But the leap of faith (in the article) from ‘mulling over’ to ‘redesign’ was enormous,” he said.

Here is what he told Platts LNG Daily

“We have thought about (exporting LNG) off and on because every time people look at Kitimat they come to us and ask us if we have,” said Jordan Cove Project Manager Bob Braddock.

With US gas prices expected to remain below $5/MMBtu for the near future, the search for higher-priced markets has already led some producers and market players to search for more options for domestically produced gas. The Kitimat LNG project in British Columbia announced in 2008 that it would switch from importing to exporting LNG. Since then, the economics of US gas have changed considerably and Kitimat is no longer the only potential North American LNG export terminal on the horizon. Over the past year, two existing LNG import terminals—Freeport LNG and Sabine Pass along the
US Gulf Coast—have applied to export US gas as LNG.

“We have received inquires from people who have production so we are starting to mull it over in our minds … (but) in the end of the day it’s the terminal users that will make that decision,” Braddock said. “We are the party that provides infrastructure for the users, so if they came to us and said, ‘We would like you to (switch to exporting,’ we would.”

“At the time Kitimat first proposed reversing the flow (to export) we thought it was a dumb idea, and I think that observation was made because we failed to understand how dramatic the growth in shale gas was going to be,” Braddock said. “That’s the way we looked at it then. Today I guess we’ve
reached the point where we just don’t know whether it makes sense or not … at a high level we’ve noodled over it.”

Read the Platts LNG Daily in full