Cove Point in Maryland, which won federal approval on Monday, now slated to become first gas export facility on US east coast

Environmental groups said on Tuesday they may sue to block the construction of a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

The announcement comes a day after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the five-member panel that oversees natural gas infrastructure in the US, gave the green light to Dominion Energy’s Cove Point export terminal, which could export tens of millions of dekatherms of natural gas each year.



Cove Point is now slated to become the first gas export facility on the east coast of the US, and the fourth approved by FERC in the continental US. The only terminal currently in operation in the country is in Alaska.

The facilities have run into opposition from environmentalists who say transporting gas thousands of miles away will increase greenhouse gas emissions. They also say the LNG facilities undermine the oil and gas industry’s argument that increased hydraulic fracturing in the US will lead to energy independence.

“How in the world do you enhance energy independence by exporting energy to other countries,” said Mike Tidwell, the director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a local environmental group. “That’s just illogical on its face. Period.”

Until recently, the idea of freezing and exporting gas from the US was economically impractical. But the hydraulic fracturing boom in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas and elsewhere has created a glut of natural gas. That’s pushed gas prices in the US so low that energy companies now see the multi-billion dollar export facilities as a key to profitability. There are currently 14 more LNG export projects awaiting FERC review.

The $3.4bn Cove Point facility will help Dominion reach the natural gas market in India and Japan, where natural gas prices are up to five times higher than in the US.

“It will allow the US to provide clean natural energy to two of our overseas allies who desperately need it,” said Cove Point spokesman Karl Neddenien.

Other LNG export facilities are aiming for the European market, where prices are also higher.

But those higher prices may come with higher environmental costs.

According to an Department of Energy analysis, gas export facilities are better for the environment than burning coal if methane leaks along the route are minimized. But some studies, including one by Cornell ecology professor Robert Howarth, suggest that methane leaks are several times higher than the DOE estimates. If that’s the case, LNG facilities could be worse for global warming than coal.

“There’s methane leakage on the pipelines, leakage in the compressor station, liquefaction is really energy-intensive, then it goes on tanker ships running on fossil fuels all the way to Asia, where they re-vaporize it, and then it’s lit of fire from downtown Tokyo to New Delhi,” said Tidwell. “Obviously it’s bad for the air, bad for water, and bad for the climate.”