Gibbstown Deepwater Port LNG Terminal

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Gibbstown Deepwater Port LNG Terminal, also known as Gibbstown LNG Terminal, is a proposed LNG terminal in New Jersey, United States.

Location

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Project Details

• Owner: Delaware River Partners LLC
• Parent: Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors LLC
• Location: Greenwich Township, New Jersey, United States
• Coordinates: 39.841886, -75.299108 (exact)
• Capacity: 1.5 mtpa
• Cost: US$450 million
• Status: Proposed
• Type: Export
• Start Year:
• Associated Infrastructure: New Fortress Wyalusing LNG Terminal

Note: mtpa = million tonnes per year; bcfd = billion cubic feet per day

Background

In June 2019, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a New York investment firm was quietly laying the groundwork to build a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal from a former DuPont explosives factory near Philadelphia. The terminal will export Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale gas to foreign markets. The plan to revive DuPont’s former Repauno Works in Greenwich Township, a shuttered dynamite factory on the Delaware River that is still contaminated 20 years after it closed, has gathered support from South Jersey elected officials. Environmentalists oppose the project. Opposition groups include the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and the New Jersey Sierra Club. To reach Gibbstown, the gas would be transported in trucks or rail cars from the proposed New Fortress Wyalusing LNG Terminal in Wyalusing, northeastern Pennsylvania to a Delaware River port in Gloucester County. This follows federal approval by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) in July 2020 of a LNG-by-rail permit which would allow trains to carry LNG roughly 200 miles from Wyalusing to Gibbstown. Subsequently, the Trump Administration's PHMSA removed the longstanding ban on the transport of LNG by rail car, allowing LNG to be moved by rail car anywhere in the U.S. by any carrier. Fourteen states — including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware — and the District of Columbia, as well as six environmental organizations represented by Earthjustice and the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, have filed a legal challenge to the new federal rule as they say it poses health, safety, and environmental risks.

Delaware River Partners' immediate parent company, Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors LLC, has told investment analysts that it plans to spend US$450 million to develop the Repauno rail and port terminal, including an expanded underground storage cavern and a rail-unloading facility.

In June 2019, the multi-state Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) conducted a hearing in West Trenton on the company’s application to build a US$96 million, 1,600-foot-long pier with two deepwater berths to load tankers at Repauno, also known as the Gibbstown Logistics Center. The DRBC says its review is confined to the impact of dredging and wharf construction. The Delaware River Basin Commission approved the original project in 2017, allowing the construction of one wharf for the export of various commodities, including automobiles, bulk-break cargo, and natural gas liquids, but not liquefied natural gas. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved an application to modify the property’s land-use permit in 2018, which mentioned LNG among several fuel commodities that would be transloaded at Repauno, along with automobiles, perishables, and “other bulk cargo.” The DEP also issued a waterfront development permit for the project but suspended the permit after activists complained that public notification was inadequate.

The DRBC approved the LNG export terminal on June 12, 2019. Ther permit was appealed by Delaware Riverkeeper Network, which led to an adjudicatory hearing in 2020 before an appointed Hearing Officer and a nine day trial providing expert testimony. The Hearing Officer recommended that the approval be upheld by the DRBC Commissioners. However, in September 2020, a DRBC vote on whether or not to approve the project was postponed with officials stating that additional time was required for review and deliberation owing to the extent and complexity of the project documentation under scrutiny. On December 9, the DRBC approved a permit for construction of Delaware River Partners LLC's marine terminal in Gibbstown, making possible the exporting of liquefied natural gas from the terminal once the new Dock 2 would be constructed. The DRBC voting members are the governors of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware, plus the President of the United States, represented by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it said that its approval did not consider the type of cargo to be shipped from the terminal, merely the impact on water resources from construction of the dock and dredging. Four of the commissioners voted to approve the Gibbstown project, with New York abstaining. Two weeks after the DBRC approval, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he would try to stop the plan to ship liquefied natural gas through the LNG export terminal at Gibbstown. Murphy told media that New Jersey's vote at the DRBC in favour of the project was on the issue of whether to allow dredging for construction of the dock but that his administration remained committed to its clean energy policies, and so would do everything in its power to prevent the new dock being used to transport LNG. Governor Murphy's DEP subsequently approved the project's state permits.

In April 2023, the US Department of Transportation denied a special permit sought by the project to transport LNG by rail to the facility. This decision hampers the ability for the project to be built; the only alternative to transporting LNG by rail to the facility would be by truck, which is impractical. In August 2023, the US Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) announced that it would temporarily put on hold its rule allowing LNG to be shipped by rail, while it studies safety concerns. This ruling could further challenge the project's viability. In September 2023, PHMSA suspended the rule adopted under the Trump Administration that lifted the ban on LNG Transport by rail. A final replacement rule that regulates the transport of LNG is expected to be proposed before the suspension rule expires in June 2025.

In April 2024, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asked the sponsors of New Fortress Wyalusing LNG Terminal and Gibbstown Deepwater Port LNG Terminal whether the projects were still alive, given that it would not be possible to transport LNG by rail from the former to the latter. The sponsors, Bradford County Real Estate Partners and Delaware River Partners, indicated that both proposals are still active, and that LNG-by-truck is being considered as an alternative, while awaiting FERC's decision as to whether it will assert jurisdiction over the project.

According to Delaware Currents, LNG-by-truck would present its own obstacles: "The project called for as many as 400 trucks per day snaking through or near densely populated communities, such as Allentown, Philadelphia, Reading, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and Camden, N.J., and/or for trains of up to 100 specialized tankers to make the trip to Gibbstown." Environmental advocates responded to this proposal calling it “unnecessary and reckless” (Beyond Dirty Fuels) and “absurd at best and deadly at worst" (PennFuture).

Opposition

Public opposition to the project began from its inception in June 2019. Legal challenges were mounted to all major permits for the project. Actions such as rallies, public forums, tens of thousands of petitions, public comment campaigns, and letters signed by objectors attacked the proposed LNG project over the next five years. For instance, a group of health professionals and 133 environmental groups submitted letters to DRBC calling for a no vote on the project. Seventeen New Jersey local government bodies, ten Pennsylvania municipalities, and two Delaware municipalities have adopted resolutions opposing the transport of LNG through their communities. Several Philadelphia City Council members have indicated similar concerns, noting that a rail or truck route through densely populated parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey to arrive at Gibbstown would expose Black, brown and low-income communities to the most intense zones of impact in the event of a derailment or explosion. Setbacks for the project have delayed its construction, which has not been started as of the summer of 2024. According to the New Jersey Sierra Club, further problematic aspects connected to the project, which DRBC ought to be weighing, are: whether the operation would stimulate fracking and boost greenhouse gas emissions, running counter to the climate goals of all four basin states; whether the Delaware River’s water quality would be hurt, and; whether endangered species of fish would be impacted. Delaware Riverkeeper Network's legal challenge to the Army Corps of Engineers permit for the project based on environmental impacts and the pending decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as to whether the Gibbstown/Wyalusing Project falls under their jurisdiction will likely decide the future of this unpopular and beleaguered project.

In March 2023, students and community leaders staged a rally in Camden urging the city council to reject the proposal for the LNG terminal.