Crunch time for decision on Shannon LNG project
Ballylongford residents in favour of the LNG plant Patsy O'Shea and Teresa Parkerson with the LNG site in the distance. Picture: Domnick Walsh
The long-awaited decision on a €650m liquefied natural gas (LNG) project for the Shannon Estuary, this country’s first, on the southern side of the Shannon estuary between Tarbert and Ballylongford in Co Kerry, is due on September 9.
Few expect the deadline to be met for the giant project covering under a third of the 600-acre landbank once owned by the State .
Further information from the applicants, now New Fortress Energy, has been sought by An Bord Pleanála.
The war in Ukraine has brought the issue of Ireland’s energy supply to the fore — but a war is also looming politically with climate change activists squaring up to politicians.
The plan to build a major gas terminal, importing frozen gas and liquefying it then feeding it onto the Shannon Foynes gas pipeline is almost 20 years old.
It was formally launched in 2006 by then minister for enterprise Micheál Martin at the Lanterns Hotel in Tarbert.
Original proposers, the giant oil company Hess Corporation — granted permission by An Bord Pleanála in 2008 — pulled out after a long delay over regulatory issues and being asked by the energy regulator to stump up for UK interconnector pipes for the transport of gas.
Hess sold in 2016 after spending €67m on the project, which never got to construction. Its planning had also expired.
Political support has waned as the focus on climate change has increased, while the plan has been mired in technical and often legalistic quagmire by opponents.
But energy security concerns and the war means the issue is once again to the fore. A day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Killarney native Sean Kelly MEP, a long-time proponent of the project, said:
“The war has changed the landscape.” Ireland would be “absolutely off the wall, mad altogether” if it did not avail of the opportunity for energy security, a project that would not cost the State one penny, he said.
Now Taoiseach, 16 years after he launched it, Micheál Martin, on an extended visit to Kerry, said LNG generally was “one of a number of options that have to be considered”.
Stopping short of endorsing the specific location, Mr Martin said the energy situation meant things had "changed dramatically”.
All of Europe was now looking at LNG, he said.
Speaking as a climate camp made up of protesters against the plan was setting up near the site on the Shannon, Mr Martin also underlined how LNG “that is not derived from fracking” was consistent with the Programme for Government.
“The energy crisis brought about by the war has changed dramatically in the short-term the energy security question,” he said.
And it was “one of number of options that simply have to be considered in the light of the energy security situation". Politicians from both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been lining up in support.
The Green Party has no elected representative in Kerry, although local members have voiced strong opposition and visited last week's climate camp.
Mr Martin stressed “the Programme for Government allowed for LNG, but without fracking”, clearly offering a way out for his Government partners.
There have been so many proposals for this valuable deep water site — one of the deepest and most accessible in Europe — and so many sods turned by TDs "they’d have a field ploughed”, local man Teddy Griffin remarked last week.
A member of the Tarbert-Ballylongford LNG liaison group which strongly supports the project, Mr Griffin and others have watched as employment opportunities on their doorstep have vanished and with it a generation. Shops have closed pubs, have gone, houses are being abandoned, they say.
“What are the grandchildren, those that are left, to do?” he asked.
Teddy Griffin has oil lamps ready for a winter of power cuts, he said. This is despite living at the confluence of modern energy — Tarbert’s ESB oil-fired station; the huge Moneypoint coal burner just 3km across the Shannon, huge bogs for turf and a plethora of wind turbines.
In Ballylongford on Monday, Tarbert man John Fox, PRO of the group, is quite clear: “The vast majority of the community, 95 per cent of the people in North Kerry and west Limerick want this project. We welcome any positive statement by the Taoiseach. But we have to be a small bit cautious. In 2006 he announced it," he pointed out, and it then had the backing of the political parties in Kerry, Clare, and Limerick.
“The protestors don’t want it. And they want everything in the countryside closed,” he said of the latest protest — the six-day climate camp. Their methods all along were “obstruction” using technicalities, he said of the history of opposition.
“We want proper planning. We too are very concerned about the environment,” he said.
The current application is capable of conversion to hydrogen, he also noted.
Dismantling their camp on Monday, the Climate Camp Ireland group said 400 people came to their field over the course of the six days, including local interest.
Shell to Sea campaigner Maura Harrington was among those to visit, they confirmed, along with Love Leitrim group, set up to ban fracking in Ireland, as well as the People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith.
Local Green Party members and former party members including Cork city councillor Lorna Bogue also turned out, but no Green TD.
William Hederman, spokesman for the Climate Camp Ireland Group, said originally safety was the big issue.
In 2007, “the primary concern is the lack of safety for nearby residents”, Safety before Shannon LNG wrote.
However, the goalposts have changed and the battle is very much global now — with fracking and climate the core issues, Mr Hederman said, and the battle was bigger than the local.
“There are still huge concerns about safety. But even bigger than safety is fracking and bigger again by far and away is climate,” Mr Hederman said.
Environmental scientist Dr Laura Kehoe of Nature Conservancy gave a workshop at the climate camp.
“We are in a climate crisis. The science is very clear, we can not construct any new fossil fuel infrastructure," she said, adding people had to come together to create a solution.
“The Government is not leading on this issue,” Dr Kehoe said.
Climate Camp Ireland does not accept assurances by New Fortress Energy that the hundreds of tankers envisaged for the plant will not be bringing fracked gas.
“All of their operation involves fracked gas in North America,” Mr Hederman said.
About 150 people from around Ireland took part in a two-hour trespass occupation of the site on Sunday, which they described as a “show of strength and a warning” to project developer, US corporation New Fortress Energy and the Irish Government.
Meanwhile, the deadline is September 6 for the LNG regasification terminal jetty to facilitate the berthing of a floating storage unit, onshore vaporisation process equipment and administrative and associated buildings looms.
Should the applicants not provide the information, the project could be refused. However sources say extra time will probably be requested and granted to collate the information.
Then there will be public consultation and comment sought and more than likely an oral hearing — for the second time.
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