[Federal Register Volume 68, Number 15 (Thursday, January 23, 2003)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3299-3301]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 03-1486]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Coast Guard

Maritime Administration

[USCG-2003-14294]


El Paso Energy Bridge Gulf of Mexico, LLC Deepwater Port License 
Application

AGENCY: Coast Guard, DOT. Maritime Administration, DOT.

ACTION: Notice of application.

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SUMMARY: The Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration (MARAD) give 
notice, as required by the Deepwater Port Act of 1974, as amended, that 
they have received an application for the licensing of a deepwater 
port, and that the application appears to contain the required 
information. The notice summarizes the applicant's plans and the 
procedures we will follow in considering the application.

DATES: Any public hearing held in connection with this application must 
be held not later than September 22, 2003. The application will be 
approved or denied within 90 days after the last public hearing held on 
the application.

ADDRESSES: The mailing address for the clerk in this proceeding is: 
Commandant (G-M), U.S. Coast Guard, 2100 Second Street SW., Washington, 
DC 20593-0001. Public docket USCG-2003-14294 is maintained by the 
Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of Transportation, Room PL-
401, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 20590-0001. The Docket 
Management Facility office maintains a Web site, http://dms.dot.gov, 
and can be reached by telephone at 202-366-9329 or fax at 202-493-2251.
    Anyone is able to search the electronic form of all comments 
received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual 
submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf 
of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review the 
Department of Transportation's complete Privacy Act Statement in the 
Federal Register published on April 11, 2000, (Volume 65, Number 70; 
Pages 19477-78) or you may visit http://dms.dot.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: If you have questions on this notice 
call Robert Nelson, U.S. Coast Guard, (202) 267-0496, 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Receipt of application; determination. On 
December 20, 2002, the Coast Guard and MARAD received an application 
from El Paso Energy Bridge Gulf of Mexico LLC,

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1001 Louisiana Street, Houston, Texas 77002 for all Federal 
authorizations required for a license to own, construct and operate a 
deepwater port off the coast of Louisiana. On January 14, 2003, we 
determined that the application appears to contain all required 
information. The application and related documentation supplied by the 
applicant (except for certain protected information specified in 33 
U.S.C. 1513) may be viewed in the public docket (see ADDRESSES).
    Background. According to the Deepwater Port Act of 1974, as amended 
(the Act, 33 U.S.C. 1501 et seq.), a deepwater port is a fixed or 
floating manmade structure other than a vessel, or a group of 
structures, located beyond the territorial sea and off the coast of the 
U.S., used or intended for use as a port or terminal for the 
transportation, storage, and further handling of oil for transportation 
to any State. The Act was most recently amended by the Maritime 
Transportation Security Act of 2002 (MTSA, Pub. L. 107-295), which 
extends the deepwater port definition to include natural gas 
facilities.
    A deepwater port must be licensed, and the Act provides that a 
license applicant submit detailed plans for its facility to the 
Secretary of Transportation, along with its application. The Secretary 
has delegated the processing of deepwater port applications to the 
Coast Guard and MARAD. The Act allows 21 days following receipt of the 
application to determine if it contains all required information. If it 
does, we must publish a notice of application in the Federal Register 
and summarize the plans. This notice is intended to meet those 
requirements of the Act and to provide general information about the 
procedure that will be followed in considering the application.
    Application procedure. We consider the application on its merits. 
Under the Act, we have 240 days from the date this notice is published 
to hold at least one public hearing, which is your opportunity to 
submit written or oral comment on the application. We will publish a 
separate Federal Register notice to notify you of any hearing we decide 
to hold. At least one hearing must be held in each adjacent coastal 
state. Pursuant to 33 U.S.C. 1508, we designate Louisiana as an 
adjacent coastal state. Other states may apply for adjacent coastal 
state status in accordance with 33 U.S.C. 1508(a)(2). After the last 
public hearing, Federal agencies have 45 days in which to comment to us 
on the application, and approval or denial of the application must 
follow within 90 days after the last public hearing. Details of the 
application process are described in 33 U.S.C. 1504 and in 33 CFR part 
148.
    The present application involves a proposed liquefied natural gas 
(LNG) facility. As such, MTSA excepts the application from the 
restrictions of 33 U.S.C. 1504(d)(1)-(3) and 33 U.S.C. 1504(i)(1)-(3). 
While this permits submission and consideration of competing 
applications for the same ``application area'', there may still be 
practical restrictions from a navigation safety standpoint with regard 
to the proximity of multiple deepwater ports.
    We will review the application under the current deepwater port 
regulations published in 33 CFR part 148. On May 30, 2002 (67 FR 37920) 
the Coast Guard published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) 
indicating its intent to revise those regulations. Public comments have 
been received in response to the NPRM and we will consider those 
comments prior to adopting revised regulations. In addition, MTSA 
mandates that we revise existing deepwater port regulations as soon as 
practicable to implement extension of deepwater port regulations to 
natural gas. It also allows for the issuance of an interim final rule 
without public notice and comment. Thus, the current regulations may be 
amended before we have fully processed the application. In that event, 
the amended regulations will govern further processing of the 
application as soon as they take effect.
    Summary of the application. El Paso Energy Bridge Gulf of Mexico, 
LLC (Energy Bridge GOM) proposes to locate, construct and operate the 
Deepwater Port on Block 603, West Cameron Area, South Addition, which 
has been leased from the Minerals Management Service (MMS) for this 
project.
    The Deepwater Port will consist of a Submerged Turret Loading (STL) 
system that is comprised of a submerged turret buoy; chains, lines and 
anchors; a flexible riser; and a subsea manifold. Other components of 
the Deepwater Port will include approximately 1.93 miles of 20-inch 
pipeline; a small meter platform and risers; a 20-inch diameter 
pipeline approximately 3.96 miles in length that will extend from the 
meter platform to Sea Robin Pipeline Company (Sea Robin), an offshore 
natural gas pipeline subject to the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission's (FERC) Natural Gas Act (NGA) jurisdiction; and a separate 
20-inch diameter pipeline approximately 1.38 miles in length that will 
extend from the meter platform to a section of pipe that will 
interconnect to an offshore natural gas pipeline system commonly 
referred to as the Blue Water system. This system is owned in part by 
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company and in part by Columbia Gulf 
Transmission Company, another interstate pipeline subject to the FERC's 
NGA jurisdiction. The natural gas transported by Sea Robin and Blue 
Water will come ashore at the Louisiana coast.
    The Deepwater Port will be used to deliver to onshore markets 
natural gas derived from the regasified LNG that will be received from 
sources worldwide. The gas to be transported through the Deepwater Port 
will be owned by Deepwater Energy L.P., (Deepwater Energy) an affiliate 
of Energy Bridge GOM. Deepwater Energy will utilize the entire capacity 
of the Deepwater Port.
    Gas will be delivered to the Deepwater Port by conventional LNG 
vessels, which incorporate shipboard regasification capabilities. The 
vessels will operate in foreign commerce and be leased to affiliates of 
Energy Bridge GOM. The vessels that will be used to deliver natural gas 
to the Deepwater Port will have a capacity to hold 138,000 cubic meters 
of LNG and will regasify the LNG onboard at the point of delivery to 
the Deepwater Port so that imports will consist of gas in its vaporous 
state, rather than in a liquefied state. Each 138,000 cubic meter LNG 
vessel will deliver approximately 2.9 billion cubic feet (BCF) of 
natural gas through the Deepwater Port. The first El Paso Energy Bridge 
vessel (EPEBV) will be available to commence service by November of 
2004. Each vessel will have fully-integrated regasification facilities 
on-board, using the same type of proven regasification technology that 
is used in land-based regasification terminals. Each EPEBV will also 
have the alternate capability to deliver LNG to conventional onshore 
regasification terminals in the same manner as existing LNG vessels.
    When an EPEBV reaches the location of the Deepwater Port, it will 
retrieve and connect to the STL system. For that purpose, a winch 
located on the vessel will raise the submerged buoy from its subsurface 
location, where it is located when not connected to an EPEBV. The buoy 
will be drawn into an opening in the hull of the vessel. After it is 
secured to the EPEBV, the buoy will serve both as the mooring system 
for the vessel and as the offloading mechanism for transferring the 
natural gas. After the buoy is attached to the vessel and all start-up 
prerequisites are satisfied, the on-board LNG regasification process 
will commence. The gas is then discharged through the buoy into the 
subsea flexible riser. The gas will move

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from the riser to a pipeline and manifold (PLEM) after which the gas 
will be delivered into a twenty-inch diameter pipeline to be 
constructed by Energy Bridge GOM. The gas will travel for approximately 
1.93 miles through the pipeline. At the end of that pipeline, the gas 
will be delivered to a small metering platform, constructed by Energy 
Bridge GOM, where the gas will flow through one of two gas measurement 
meters, one measuring gas destined for the Sea Robin system and a 
second measuring gas to be delivered to the Blue Water system. After 
metering, the gas pressure will be reduced by regulators on the 
platform so that the gas can enter either the Sea Robin or Blue Water 
system at the pressure prescribed by the operators for each of those 
systems. Natural gas delivered to the Sea Robin system will be 
transported through a 3.96 mile pipeline, while natural gas delivered 
to the Blue Water system will be transported through a 1.38 mile 
pipeline. The pipeline extending to the Sea Robin system will cross 
portions of West Cameron Blocks 602 and 601 and will interconnect with 
Sea Robin on East Cameron Block 335. The second pipeline from the 
platform will cross a portion of West Cameron Block 600 and will 
interconnect with the Blue Water system on West Cameron Block 601.

    Dated: January 15, 2003.
L.L. Hereth,
Rear Admiral, Coast Guard, Acting Assistant Commandant for Marine 
Safety, Security and Environmental Protection.
Raymond R. Barberesi,
Director, Office of Ports and Domestic Shipping, U.S. Maritime 
Administration.
[FR Doc. 03-1486 Filed 1-22-03; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-15-P