Liquefied Natural Gas

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign for a $243-million telephone users tax has received a major contribution from an unlikely source -- a Texas oilman whose company could see a windfall from one of the mayor's environmental initiatives. Proposition S, which is on Tuesday's ballot, took in a $150,000 contribution last week from billionaire T. Boone Pickens, the co-founder of Clean Energy, which bills itself as the nation's largest supplier of liquid natural gas.

After four years of scrutiny, Long Beach officials Monday pulled the plug on a controversial energy project that promised an abundant new source of clean-burning liquefied natural gas for California but posed insurmountable safety concerns. In a unanimous vote, the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners decided to end an environmental review of the project that was launched more than two years ago but had slipped far behind schedule.

A small energy company is the latest to propose a liquefied natural gas terminal in Southern California, detailing a plan Wednesday for two floating platforms about 10 miles southwest of Huntington Beach. As envisioned by Esperanza Energy, a subsidiary of Tidelands Oil and Gas Corp. of San Antonio, the terminals would be located in 1,100 feet of water, among a set of existing oil platforms.

A comprehensive study released Friday on a natural gas processing plant that would be built in the ocean about 20 miles from Malibu concludes that the project poses substantial environmental and safety concerns for the California coast. BHP Billiton, one of the largest energy companies in the world, wants its $800-million terminal to become the portal through which California receives natural gas from Australia.

The chairman of an Assembly committee that heavily influences California's energy policy announced Saturday that he now opposes construction of an $800-million natural gas processing plant in the ocean about 20 miles off Malibu. Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) said he would fight a terminal proposed by BHP Billiton, one of the largest energy companies in the world, because "it's an environmental problem for the coast."

Following an all-day public hearing that drew hundreds of opponents, a state commission voted Monday to reject the environmental impact report on a proposed $800-million floating liquefied natural gas terminal off the Ventura County coast -- an action that could effectively kill the project. The state Lands Commission voted 2 to 1 to reject the environmental study and not issue a lease for the BHP Billiton project. Democratic Lt. Gov.

As environmentalists cheered a state agency's rejection of its project, Australian energy giant BHP Billiton was left scrambling Tuesday for a way to salvage its plans to build an $800-million natural gas processing plant off the Ventura County coast.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday vetoed a proposal to build a terminal for importing liquefied natural gas 20 miles off the coast of Malibu, but he kept the door open for future LNG projects if they are environmentally sensitive. "California needs to diversify fuel sources for California consumers with cleaner alternatives such as LNG," the governor said.

Woodside Petroleum Ltd., an Australian oil and gas processor, said it would use U.S.-flagged vessels and American crews for a planned $1-billion liquefied natural gas facility in Southern California. Woodside is the first gas company to make such a commitment and its proposal "will become the primary focus of our agency," said Sean Connaughton, head of the U.S. Maritime Administration. Based on legislation passed last year, proposed facilities that commit to using U.S.

The latest proposal to develop a liquefied natural gas terminal off the coast of Ventura County begins a crucial process today as regulators hear from the public about which issues to consider during an upcoming environmental review. The $600-million Clearwater Port terminal, proposed by Houston-based NorthernStar Natural Gas Inc., would convert an oil platform about 11 miles offshore from Oxnard to receive and process up to 1.