NorthernStar files for Chapter 7 liquidation after halting plans for West Coast’s 1st LNG port

Ore. LNG port developer files for liquidation

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — The company that recently halted development of a liquefied natural gas port near the mouth of the Columbia River has filed for liquidation.

NorthernStar Natural Gas Inc. and its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Tuesday in Houston.

Company spokesman Joe Desmond said Wednesday that he could not comment on the filings, but in a statement about halting work on the Bradwood Landing project, NorthernStar President Paul Soanes blamed permit delays.

The company launched the project six years ago, hoping to turn an abandoned lumber mill site into the first deep-water port to receive liquefied natural gas tankers on the West Coast. The project won approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission but ran into problems from state regulators over zoning and salmon protection issues.

The company also was working on an offshore site at Oxnard, Calif., under the name Clearwater Port LLC, but California recently terminated NorthernStar’s application for a right-of-way, citing a lack of activity.

Cameron Horowitz, an analyst at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, said increased domestic supplies of natural gas have slashed prices, killing the demand for LNG imports. Two other companies trying to develop LNG facilities in Oregon would face “slim” prospects of success, he said.

“Every year for the past five years, there’s been talk that this country would be flooded with LNG imports, but it has never come to fruition,” he said from Houston. “Given the outlook for U.S. natural gas prices and the rest of the world, I don’t see it coming to fruition at all over the next five years.”

Horowitz said LNG facilities on the Gulf of Mexico have been trying to win permission to ship LNG stockpiles back overseas.

NorthernStar’s bankruptcy filing listed assets of $165,930 and liabilities of about $129.5 million.

Among the creditors is Palomar Gas Transmission LLC of Portland, a partnership including NW Natural of Portland. Palomar has been developing a 220-mile gas pipeline linking the Gas Transmission Northwest pipeline near Madras to the NW Natural pipeline system southeast of Portland and on to Bradwood Landing.

NW Natural spokeswoman Kim Heiting said it was continuing to work on the eastern half of the pipeline to assure deliveries of domestic natural gas as demand increased for gas-powered power plants, and it would only go forward with the western half if an LNG site is built on the Columbia.

Court filings say Palomar is owed $17.2 million.

NorthernStar listed Bradwood Landing LLC, NorthernStar Pipeline Co. LLC, Clearwater Port Holdings LLC, NSNG Management LLC and Clearwater Port LLC as subsidiaries.