LNG plant in Houston?

HOUSTON — Houston, Texas is the hub for energy in the lower 48, and if a group representing the Knikatnu Native Corporation get their way, Houston, Alaska could become a major energy player in The Last Frontier.

On Friday, the group of consultants, headed by Dave Nufer, former Houston mayor Roger Purcell and former Wasilla mayor Verne Rupright, announced their plans to construct a liquid natural gas (LNG) plant on Knikatnu land, mere feet from the new railroad tracks that run across Millers Reach Road in Houston.

It was an idea that originally dawned on Purcell when he was Houston’s mayor and plans were underway to build utility infrastructure in that spot.

“The plan the city originally had was for a three-line powerline, then to the right hand side, a sewer treatment plant,” Purcell said. “Anchorage is eventually going to stop taking all our (waste) trucks, and this could pick up all of Big Lake, Houston, Meadow Lakes.”

But last summer, when the Alaska railroad won approval to carry LNG on rail cars, the plan to load up cars with LNG there, as opposed to its current location at Point MacKenzie, the time had come to launch the plan.

Purcell said the group made its pitch to Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a corporation representing the state of Alaska that already owns the current LNG production plant at Point MacKenzie, called Titan. He said that facility is aging and not meeting the demands of the state — Fairbanks, especially — and that plans to build a newer plant adjacent to Titan, are not prudent.

He said that currently, highly combustible gas is carried from Point MacKenzie by semi-truck through the tight and busy intersections along Knik Goose Bay Road, to their ultimate destination in Fairbanks.

“On KGB, you have all the fatality accidents and lots of heavy truck traffic,” Purcell said. “Our solution says, why even have that problem? Put a new plant in and start moving it by railroad immediately upon completion.”

Purcell said the railroad currently comes up miles short of the AIDEA plant location at Point MacKenzie, making it impossible to load train cars from that location, and that there is no money in the state’s budget to extend the tracks all the way to the plant.

As for the Houston location, he said, an LNG plant can tap into a 14-inch pipeline a mile-and-a-half away, or the 20-inch pipeline the Titan facility currently uses, which is 14 miles away.

The Knikatnu group said they’ve been in discussions with private companies to bring in a modular LNG plant. Called “LNG in a Box”, this plant would come in fully constructed on the boat and travel whole by rail to its home, just off the tracks in Houston.

Purcell said the plant could be up-and-running 18 months after final approval.

He said that even if AIDEA elects to continue with its original plan of building a new plant adjacent to the Titan, whether the railroad reaches it or not, his group has plans to move forward in any event.

“The Native Corporation and all of us have been talking with companies about putting in the LNG plant,” Purcell said. “We have a meeting with (Fairbanks) Gas (later this week), and we’ve met with AIDEA. There’s interest from other companies whether AIDEA does or does not go with our plan. We’re just looking for what works out best for everybody in this situation here.”