NextDecade Cork FSRU

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NextDecade Cork FSRU, also known as Cork FSRU, is a cancelled proposal to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Cork, Ireland. A new project, Pilot Cork FSRU, has been proposed at the site.

Location

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Project Details

• Owner: NextDecade
• Location: Cork, Ireland
• Coordinates: 51.831398, -8.322984 (approximate)
• Capacity: 4.0 bcm/y, 2.9 mtpa
• Cost: €125 million (US$151 million)
• Financing:
• Status: Cancelled
• Type: Import
• Start Year: no date

Note: mtpa = million tonnes per year; bcfd = billion cubic feet per day; bcm/y = billion cubic meters per year

Background

In 2017, the Port of Cork signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with US company NextDecade and its partners to explore a joint development opportunity for a new Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) and associated LNG import terminal infrastructure in the Port of Cork, Ireland. The LNG would be sourced from Next Decade’s proposed Rio Grande LNG Terminal facility at the Port of Brownsville in South Texas. The company uses fracking in some of its explorations. If the FSRU project proceeds it would turn the imported LNG into gas and pump it to the nearby Whitegate power station for distribution through the national network.

Opposition

In November of 2019, the Port of Cork faced calls to cut ties with NextDecade, following a near-unanimous vote by city councillors in support of a Green Party motion calling on councillors to write to the Port of Cork and the Minister for Communications, Climate Change and the Environment, Richard Bruton, to formally request that they cease any work to develop facilities in the harbour to “enable the importation of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) extracted using hydraulic fracturing".

By November of 2019, the grassroots opposition group Not Here Not Anywhere had collected over 2,000 signatures via an online petition opposing construction of the terminal.

In October 2020, Ireland's Green Party members sought to stop the project's development as well as any further oil and gas exploration off the Cork coast, but their attempts failed. Green Party councillor Alan O'Connor had sought to have the ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure and exploration enshrined in the forthcoming Cork County Development Plan, which is a blueprint currently being drawn up for development in the region for the next six years.

The project's memorandum of understanding (MoU), signed in 2017, expired in December 2020. In January 2021, Ireland's Environmental Minister announced that the MoU would not by renewed, essentially cancelling the project.