Port of St. Helens Coal Export Plans Dropped

Energy company Kinder Morgan on May 8 said it has abandoned plans to build a coal export terminal at a Port of St. Helens industrial park, but says it will consider other Pacific Northwest locations for the facility.

The Houston-based company had been exploring the possibility of putting a terminal in place since early 2012. According to spokesman Allen Fore, Kinder Morgan decided not to seek permits not because of community and regional opposition to coal exports, but because of site logistics. The company couldn’t find a favorable configuration for conducting business, he said.

In January 2012, Kinder Morgan had proposed to design, build and operate a state-of-the-art coal export terminal at the Port of St. Helens’ Port Westward Industrial Park.

The proposed terminal was estimated to require $150 to $200 million in capital investment for construction and development, and would have generated an estimated 80 full time jobs to manage and operate the facility, according to Kinder Morgan. The project could have created more than 150 construction jobs over an 18 to 30 month period, according to estimates.

It was one of more than half a dozen proposed coal projects in the region the past few years, only three of which – Gateway Pacific Terminal, planned for Cherry Point, Washington, Millennium Bulk Terminal, planned for Longview, Washington, and a planned Port of Morrow facility near Boardman, Oregon – are still active.

Despite moving on from the Port of St. Helens, Kinder Morgan says it will explore other potential sites in the Pacific Northwest, where it has a sizable presence.

The company’s holdings in the region include two terminals in Portland that distribute gasoline and diesel to gas stations and load barges going up the Columbia River to supply eastern Oregon and Washington; a pipeline that transports gasoline and diesel from Portland to Eugene; and a dry bulk export terminal within the Port of Portland that handles soda ash, a common ingredient in glass.

Landholder Opposes St. Helens Coal Export Terminal

The company controlling much of the land where the Port of St. Helens wants to place a coal export terminal has rejected a proposal to build the facility, saying that the project could result in too much pollution.

Portland General Electric, which controls about 850 acres of land at the Port Westward industrial park, says that coal dust from the proposed terminal could negatively impact the air that’s used for combustion at two nearby natural gas plants.

Kinder Morgan has plans to build and operate a 100-acre coal export terminal on part of developable land that PGE operates. The utility can sublease the land under a 99-year lease that it signed with St. Helens in 2008. Under the lease, the utility has the final say on what portions of the property are used for.

PGE this week publicly said that it believes that coal dust could cause problems for its nearby facilities and that it was concerned by a potential increase in rail traffic.

The export facility would cost between $150 million to $200 million to build and export 15 million tons of coal to Asia annually, according to Kinder Morgan. If plans to place the terminal at the Port Westward complex fall through, the Port of St. Helens still has hundreds of acres of land elsewhere that could be designated as suitable for the project, according to the port, and other options are still being considered.

With its opposition, PGE is now in solidarity with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups that have been opposed to the coal export terminal on the grounds that it would result in bringing air and noise pollution to the area.

The Port of St. Helens commission has already approved another coal export facility at Port Westward, however. Under the project, which would be run by Ambre Energy North America, coal would arrive at the terminal via barge rather than train, then transferred to ships at the dock.