The United States will receive its first shipment of liquefied natural gas from Yemen this month over the objections of Massachusetts officials who have said the vessels may be targets for terrorists.

U.S. Coast Guard officials announced plans yesterday to allow an LNG
tanker from Yemen to pass through Boston Harbor into GDF Suez’s
Massachusetts terminal at the end of the month. The announcement was
made at a meeting with local officials at the Statehouse in Boston. The
Coast Guard also announced security measures for all LNG vessels from
Yemen.

“Because we had elevated concern, we found the vulnerabilities and we
established a level of security to ensure the ship remains safe,”
Lieutenant Erik Halvorson, a Coast Guard spokesman, said in a telephone
interview yesterday. He said the procedures will include ship boardings
and escorts at both U.S. and Yemeni ports.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said he was disappointed with the Coast
Guard’s decision. He said in a statement today that “extra security
alone” is not a solution.

“It is the duty of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of
Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to develop a
long-term strategy that will significantly limit, if not eliminate, the
need for LNG tankers to travel through Boston Harbor,” Menino said in
the statement.

Rhode Island

The Coast Guard’s announcement came the same day Rhode Island Attorney
General Patrick Lynch testified at a state Senate hearing, protesting
Hess LNG LLC’s plans to develop an LNG offloading terminal in Mount
Hope Bay.

Lynch has been fighting to prevent the development of LNG terminals on
or near land for the past six years, because of environmental, economic
and safety concerns.

“The reality is, there are other options,” Lynch said in a telephone
interview today, referring to his preference for LNG off-loading
terminals located more than 10 miles out to sea.

Safety fears associated with LNG tankers offloading near land
intensified following the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001. After the attacks,
all LNG tankers were barred from Boston Harbor through mid-October,
when the ban was lifted against Mayor Menino’s wishes.

The Yemen branch of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the 2009
Christmas Day incident in which Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was
charged with attempting to blow up a Detroit- bound plane.

Yemen, which exported its first LNG cargo at the end of 2009, may send
its first shipment to a Louisiana terminal before a shipment arrives in
Massachusetts, Christopher Butschek, an analyst based in Houston with
Raymond James Financial Inc., said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Source: Bloomberg

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