The USA: Conflicts in California

Abstract

In the late 1960s, based on projections of decreasing existing natural gas supplies and increasing demand, several US gas companies began to seek additional supplies. In 1974, Western LNG Terminal Company, representing the terminal siting interests of threè major utility companies, applied for approval of three LNG import sites on the California coast: Point Conception, on a remote and attractive part of the coast; Oxnard, a port city; and Los Angeles, a large harbor metropolis (see Figure 6.1). Western sought approval for all three sites in order to minimize the volume of tanker traffic at any one site, to separate ownership and control, and to reduce the risk of LNG supply interruption due to possible problems at any one location. The LNG would be shipped from Alaska’s North Slope, Cook Inlet in southern Alaska, and Indonesia to the three sites. After nearly a decade of controversy, the utilities have announced that they will defer pursuing further their application for Point Conception, the one site remaining under active consideration, because California no longer needs to import natural gas.

This chapter was written by John Lathrop and Joanne Linnerooth, based on a more comprehensive case study (Lathrop 1981, Linnerooth 1980).