Federal regulators approve Cove Point gas export terminal

• Marie Cusick
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  Marie Cusick was the Harrisburg reporter for StateImpact Pennsylvania.

Federal regulators have approved a proposal to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Dominion’s Cove Point, Maryland terminal. The facility was originally designed to receive gas imports, but will now become the closest export terminal to the Marcellus Shale.
As the domestic fracking boom has unleashed record amounts of natural gas and depressed prices, the industry has been seeking new markets abroad.
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Cove Point is the fourth U.S. LNG export project to get the green light to begin construction from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It will be able to export up to 5.75 million metric tons of LNG a year when fully operational.
Dominion’s facility is one of about two dozen projects that hope to ship a growing bounty of domestic natural gas to countries in Asia and Europe.
The Cove Point site, a little more than an hour’s drive southeast of Washington, D.C. on Chesapeake Bay, boasts four large storage tanks and a pier built in the 1970s to import LNG from Algeria, underscoring just how much U.S. market dynamics have changed.
“We are pleased to receive this final approval that allows us to start constructing this important project that offers significant economic, environmental and geopolitical benefits,” said Diane Leopold, president of Dominion Energy.

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