Cabrillo Port LNG Terminal Environmental Permitting

Client: BHP Billiton

Location: Southern California

Summary: BHP Billiton?s Cabrillo Port Project was the first proposed LNG regasification terminal to be located offshore southern California and would be a floating storage and regasificiation facility with a sub-sea pipeline that crosses federal and State of California waterways. Similar to the Broadwater Project, the Cabrillo Port Project would be located offshore to balance the need for safety with providing a new source of energy to major population centers. To facilitate the development of this project, Cardno ENTRIX prepared licensing applications and wrote an environmental analysis, which were submitted for approval to the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and the Maritime Administration.

Cardno ENTRIX also submitted an application for a Land Lease to the California State Lands Commission, and prepared the associated permit applications for the project. Cardno ENTRIX successfully negotiated the project out of a non-attainment area that would have required the use of expensive air emission controls. Additionally, Cardno ENTRIX engineers and geologists worked on a seismic hazard assessment and helped BHP Billiton staff and contractors to develop third-party risk assessment scenarios. Finally, Cardno ENTRIX helped evaluate the environmental and regulatory constraints of siting the project in the Long Beach Harbor area, which resulted in the proposed project siting offshore Ventura County.