Tenaska NG Fuels, the Omaha, Nebraska-based developer of a natural gas liquefaction facility that was planned for an 80-acre site off Scenic Highway near Devil’s Swamp, is still pursuing the project—even though most of the land was sold last week to a New Orleans construction company.
Executives with Tenaska, which first announced plans last fall to develop the Tenaska Bayou LNG with Houston-based partner Waller Marine, say they have identified 12 potential new sites between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and still hope to develop the facility. Should the facility come to fruition, it is expected to initially be capable of producing 200,000 gallons of LNG daily to supply brown-water vessels on the river.
“Tenaska and Waller Marine continue to move forward,” says Doug Lauver, vice president of LNG development. “We are pleased with the progress we have made so far.”
Lauver could not provide any additional details on the 12 sites or a specific timeline for the project.
The 80-acre property Tenaska originally planned to develop comprised two parcels—a 59-acre tract, then owned by businessman Sidney Brian, and an adjacent 21-acre parcel owned by the Port of Greater Baton Rouge. On March 19, Brian sold his parcel for $3 million to Barriere Construction, which plans to develop an asphalt plant on the site. An attorney for Brian says Tenaska and Waller Marine had an option on the property that was extended several times but that the deal fell through.
The smaller parcel is still owned by the port, which has a long-term tenant on the site, Kanorado Terminals. Handleman says Kanorado had been willing to enter into a joint venture with Waller Marine-Tenaska essentially to share the property. However, because the deal fell through, Kanorado will continue its dry bulk operations at the site, as it has for the past decade.
“We knew [this deal] was going to take a long time to materialize, and we knew it was going to be a struggle to fuel the brown-water fleet with LNG,” he says. “It is probably not as easily done as first thought due to a whole host of reasons.”
—Stephanie Riegel
