Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Safety zones established around Northeast Gateway LNG
8 January 2008
Energy Current
USA: The U.S. Coast Guard is establishing two temporary safety zones 1,640 feet (500 m) around two independent submerged turret loading buoys of Excelerate Energy's Northeast Gateway Deepwater Port in the Atlantic Ocean offshore Massachusetts and its accompanying systems. The temporary safety zones are being established to protect vessels and mariners from the potential safety hazards associated with deepwater port facilities. All vessels, with the exception of deepwater port support vessels, are prohibited from entering into or moving within either of the safety zones. The safety zones, which were announced in the Jan. 8 edition of the Federal Register, will be in place from Jan. 8 until May 7 of this year.
Work has been completed on the Northeast Gateway Energy Bridge liquefied natural gas (LNG) port and the facility will begin offloading tankers as soon as the U.S. Coast Guard issues an operations permit, the Gloucester Daily News reported. It is not yet known when the permit will be issued.
Northeast Gateway will be the first new LNG importation facility to serve the U.S. East Coast in more than 25 years. Excelerate Energy constructed the Northeast Gateway deepwater port 18 miles (29 km) east of Boston. Spectra Energy, formerly Duke Energy, will build the 16-mile (26 km) subsea pipeline from its existing HubLine, which traverses Massachusetts Bay from Beverly to Weymouth, Mass., to the deepwater port site to transfer natural gas from the vessels into New England's gas pipeline network.
