US Lobby Group Protests Proposed Increase in LNG Sales to Barbados

Slocum submitted that “Crowley’s request and supplement fail to establish that its proposed 200 per cent increase in LNG exports is consistent with the public interest”.

“The request and supplement fail to demonstrate whether Crowley’s proposal for a nearly 200 per cent increase in the redirection of LNG supplies from Puerto Rico will interfere with the island’s ability to procure adequate gas supplies for its domestic needs,” he asserted.

“Re-exporting LNG away from Puerto Rico could contribute to physical shortages on the island and cause price spikes for the island’s consumers. Crowley’s request and supplement only provide a generic discussion of total US natural gas supply and demand with omission of any data on how its proposal to remove LNG supplies will impact Puerto Rico.”

Paul F. Forshay, partner at Washington DC law firm Holland & Knight LLP, responded to Public Citizen, Inc. in an October 26 letter on behalf of Carib Energy.

He said the lobby group’s protest “mischaracterises Carib Energy’s pending application, wholly lacks merit and provides no credible basis for delaying, let alone denying, approval of the authorisation amendment requested by Carib Energy to its existing two-year blanket authorisation to re-export previously imported LNG from Puerto Rico”.

“If its amendment request were approved, Carib Energy would continue to re-export LNG previously imported into Puerto Rico via the EcoEléctrica LNG Terminal in approved. . . LNG containers transported on ocean-going vessels to Barbados and the Dominican Republic, and anticipates commencing exports to Antigua in January 2024,” Forshay said.

He told the US Department of Energy that Carib Energy “has shown that its requested increase in authorised re-export volumes . . . would play an integral role in meeting the gas supply needs of Barbados, the Dominican Republic and Antigua”.

“The crux of Public Citizen’s protest turns on its mistaken belief that Carib Energy’s amendment application proposes a major increase in re-exported volumes that would ‘divert’ gas supplies from Puerto Rico and ‘will interfere with the island’s ability to procure adequate gas supplies for its domestic needs’. Public Citizen’s contentions lack supporting evidence and cannot withstand even cursory scrutiny,” the attorney stated.

Forshay said while Public Citizen spoke of a 200 per cent increase in LNG exports to Barbados and the other countries “in reality, however, the incremental export volume increase requested by Carib represents a small fraction of the LNG volumes imported into Puerto Rico”.

“The 0.92 billion cubic feet increase requested by Carib Energy would constitute a monthly increase of approximately 38 333 over the 24-month period covered by Carib’s blanket authorisation. To date in 2023, LNG imports into Puerto Rico have averaged approximately six billion cubic feet through August.

“Thus, Carib’s increased monthly volumes constitute an amount equivalent to 0.6 per cent of the island’s monthly LNG imports, a minimal level of exports that poses no threat to Puerto Rico’s gas supplies,” Forshay added