June 20, 2022 – ENR Texas & Louisiana
Shutdown Extended of Fire-Damaged Texas LNG Export Site
By Mary B. Powers, Debra K. Rubin
In a June 21 report, The Washington Examiner speculated, based on interviews with two unidentified pipeline security experts, on "how a critical overpressure event could have occurred without safety systems kicking into action" and whether Russian cyber hacking could have been a factor. One report source said the FBI is also investigating the incident, but the agency told the publication it would not "confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation."
Alex Munton, director of gas services at energy market consultant Rapidan Energy Group, Washington, DC, told ENR that a partial restart could be possible in 90 days because the damage was not to a single choke point of operations. There is more than one storage tank and two marine berths.
But plant shutdown “adds to an already very acute situation within the global gas market,” Munton says. It’s not good for global energy security, the company or the project, he says.
RBN Energy LLC analyst Lindsay Schneider said in a blog post that the federal pipeline safety agency "has the authority to oversee the terminal’s return to service,“ adding that "the extent of any damage is not yet known, and if new parts are needed, that might present a problem, given the issues with the global supply chain related to the pandemic.”
Schneider said that a May 2020 fire at Kinder Morgan’s liquefaction terminal, Elba LNG in Georgia, took a mini-train offline for about 18 months because the oil company had trouble procuring parts to repair the damaged unit.
Read the full article here: https://www.enr.com/articles/54317-shutdown-extended-of-fire-damaged-texas-lng-export-site
