Another natural gas case involving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is headed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. 

A fishermen’s group, some residents near the project and the Southern Environmental Legal Center (SELC) filed a petition on Sept. 4 with the court against the FERC’s approval of Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) LNG project in southwest Louisiana.

Opponents of the project say the plant will hurt the local habitat and contribute excessive amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

“Calcasieu Pass LNG has decimated our fishing industry, and we won’t recover if CP2 LNG is built next to it,” said Travis Dardar, a fisherman based in nearby Cameron, Louisiana, and the founder of environmental group Fishermen Involved in Sustaining our Heritage (FISH), in a press release from SELC. 

Venture Global did not respond to requests for comment.

Calcasieu Pass 2 is expected to export about 10 million tonnes per year of LNG once completed. Venture Global expects the project to start service in 2028. The company has yet to reach an FID.

In June, the FERC approved permits for CP2 to begin construction. The FERC later refused to re-hear the case brought by the environmental groups, which responded with the petition to the D.C. appeals court.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has made several rulings against natural gas projects over the summer. Most recently the court vacated FERC-approved permits for the Texas LNG and Rio Grande LNG projects. Earlier the court had also ruled against a Williams Cos. gas network expansion project located in the Northeast U.S.

CP2 has been in regulatory news before. In January,  CP2 was one of the first projects to face delays thanks to the Department of Energy’s pause on new LNG permits, ordered by Biden’s White House. A Louisiana court rescinded the pause in July, but it remains unclear what effect the order will have.

The company recently filed an update with the FERC stating that construction on the project needed to start by September to stay on schedule for a 2028 in-service date.

Comments