This article is from page 14 of the 2008-03-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
A THREE-year building project to construct a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal on the Shan- non Estuary is to begin shortly.
The EPA report attached to the €400 million project in Tarbert and Ballylongford states that the danger to the people living nearby and to the environment is very low.
The report said, “The resident im- pact of the proposed development on human beings will be a positive eco- nomic and employment effect.
“Results from the quantitative risk assessment show that the risk to in- dividuals living and working around the facility would be very low when compared with other ‘everyday’ risks.
“The existing residence around the terminal lie outside of the Health and Safety Authority’s respective land use planning zones.”
Once up and running, the natural gas will be pumped from tankers to storage tanks, then converted to natural gas before being piped to end users.
The terminal will include a ma- rine berth, jetty and secure mooring, LNG offloading facilities, storage tanks, and vaporisers to turn LNG from a liquid back into a gas.
The gas will then be connected up to the national gas grid.
The terminal will be built on 281 of the 600-acre land bank owned by the State for large-scale maritime-re- lated industry.
Shannon LNG, which is an Irish subsidiary of Hess LNG, outlined a number of reasons as to why the terminal was first proposed for the
Shannon estury. Among these was the exhaustion of gas fields.
“The Kinsale Head Gas Field is now nearly exhausted” and the “UK North Sea reserves are rapidly de- pleting,” it stated.
In an outlining brochure on its plans, Shannon LNG claimed that its natural gas is one of the safest and least environmentally hazardous en- ergy sources.
“LNG has had an exemplary oper- ating history and all these facilities have been operating without seri- ous public safety incidents, some for
more than 30 years.”
It stated that the construction and operation of the facility would be regulated by Government depart- ments and agencies including Kerry County Council, An Bord Pleanala, the Environment Protection Agency, the Health and Safety Authority, the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and the Commission for Energy Regula- tion.
“Trish and international regulations and standards will govern the design and operation of the facility.”