Canadian energy company Pembina Pipeline Corp. said it could no longer specify a future start date for the proposed Jordan Cove LNG export plant in Oregon.
Pembina said Feb. 25 in its fourth-quarter earnings report that it recognized a CA$1.6 billion impairment in the value of certain assets, including a petrochemical project, investments in the Wyoming-to-Oregon Ruby gas pipe and Jordan Cove.
“We believe the time for these projects may come; however, we can sadly no longer predict with certainty when that time will be,” the company said.
The $8 billion Jordan Cove is one of several major energy projects that received strong support from former U.S. President Donald Trump but have since failed to move forward.
Federal energy regulators approved construction of Jordan Cove in March 2020, but the project failed to receive water permits from Oregon amid opposition from Native American tribes and environmental and local groups.
Backers of Jordan Cove emphasized that its position on the U.S. West Coast puts it closer to fast-growing Asian markets than Gulf Coast terminals, which have to send LNG through the recently-congested Panama Canal. They had hoped the project would be operational by 2025.
Jordan Cove is designed to produce around 7.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG, equivalent to about 1 Bcf/d of gas, or enough to supply about five million U.S. homes for a day.
Jordan Cove is one of more than three dozen LNG export projects under development in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Analysts, however, expect only a handful of those projects to enter service over the next decade.
Reuters
