There is a bottleneck in oil production being felt out in the Permian Basin right now. There’s been no way to get rid of a highly marketable byproduct of oil production: natural gas.
Because of the lack of transport options, a lot of this gas is getting flared off. There are efforts underway to get this natural gas out of West Texas.
But even if you can get it to the Gulf Coast, you’ll need an export facility to get it out to sea. And the planned export facility is wrapped in a controversy all its own.
Carlos Anchondo, who reports for E&E News powered by Politico, said the facility is located in the Rio Grande Valley and is already under construction.
“The Rio Grande LNG facility is backed by NextDecade,” he said. “This project is already under construction, but it hit a snag last month after a federal appeals court vacated or tossed out a key authorization for the facility.”
There is also an ongoing disagreement between two indigenous tribes in Texas over the project.
“On one side, we have the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, which has long opposed the project and has actually been involved in litigation against it,” Anchondo said. “And on the other hand, we have the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. The chairman of that tribe recently published an op-ed last week in support of the project, saying that the court ruling would have severe negative impacts.”
The court ruling in question came down when the Court of Appeals tossed out the federal authorization for this project. This action was part of the lawsuit brought by the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe, as well as the Sierra Club.
“The court said that this agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, needed to reconsider how disadvantaged communities could be harmed by the development of this project,” Anchondo said. “So they’re sending FERC back to the drawing board, so to speak.”
The Lipan Apache tribe, on the other hand, has spoken in favor of the development opportunities associated with the facilities. NextDecade has made similar arguments.
“NextDecade has said that this ruling, if it stands, would result in the loss of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment,” Anchondo said. “And they’re then also saying that it would be a threat to global energy security, particularly as we have this war in Ukraine that has gone past the two year mark.”
In the meantime, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is doing a supplemental environmental review.
“They are going to be coming out with a final version of that by next summer. And in the meantime, the head of NextDecade recently told Reuters that they’re planning on appealing the federal court’s ruling,” Anchondo said. “So that’s something to watch as well.”
