Benefits
During the past few years US oil and gas producers have finally found a way to produce natural gas from the most abundant of all sources: Shale rock.
This has dramatically increased both the short-term and the long-term availability of natural gas in the US. Natural gas prices have plummeted and it is now estimated that the US has more than 100 years of low-cost natural gas available. This means that hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs in the US can be sustained long-term through the exploration, production, transportation, and delivery of natural gas.
The Oregon LNG facility will also be uniquely located to serve as a processing facility and export port for abundant Canadian natural gas resources. Due to the abundance of excess natural gas available in Canada, it has been estimated that all or at least the vast majority of natural gas processed at the proposed Oregon LNG facility will originate in Alberta and British Columbia. Canadian companies are planning to export large quantities of LNG to Asia through ports on the North American West Coast, and this creates a unique opportunity to create employment and prosperity in Oregon. The competition is fierce for these opportunities. However, the availability of existing natural gas pipelines from British Columbia and Alberta to the Lower Columbia River region, in addition to the availability of suitable land adjacent to an established waterway makes Warrenton a serious contender to attract such a facility.
The Oregon LNG facility alone will create approximately 10,000 man-years of construction-related employment during the proposed facility's 4-year construction period. This will make it one of the largest construction projects ever undertaken in Oregon. Oregon LNG will provide much-needed family wage jobs to thousands of Oregonian construction workers during these times of high unemployment. Hundreds of welders, pipefitters, carpenters, electricians, instrument technicians, pile drivers, steel workers, equipment operators, teamsters, insulation workers, and other skilled workers will be needed for this construction effort. This project will be 100% financed without any taxpayer funding.
Following its construction, the Oregon LNG facility will provide about 125 family wage jobs to qualified workers in the local community. While a few of these jobs will involve specialty engineering skills, the vast majority of the jobs will involve operations and maintenance-related skills commonly found in pulp and paper mills, saw mills, power stations, and other industrial facilities. In addition, the facility will include 3-4 large world-class tugboats, which will be operated and maintained by local crews.
The facility will pay an estimated $50-60 million dollars in property taxes each year to support the local and State economy. This will help fund schools, hospitals, higher education facilities and a myriad of other taxpayer funded activities in the local area as well as State-wide. In addition to property taxes, Oregon LNG will also pay corporate income taxes in Oregon.
Finally, the loss of traditional industries such as aluminum smelters, pulp and paper mills, and sawmills in this region has created a situation where intermittent residential and commercial loads on the power grid far exceed the more steady and continuous loads associated with industrial facilities. This means that at times there is simply no market for the power generated by the thousands of windmills installed in Oregon and Washington unless hundreds of miles of transmission lines are built to markets in California. Once in full operation, the Oregon LNG facility will increase the region's steady, industrial load by 300-400 MegaWatts.