LNG News Editor:
Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas), based in Los Angeles and owned by the Louisiana Cameron LNG plant operator, Sempra Energy, has agreed to pay around $1.1 billion in three settlement agreements stemming from the methane leak in 2015 at the SoCalGas Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility.
“The first agreement is subject to obtaining roughly 97 percent participation among approximately 36,000 individual plaintiffs and court approval of the settlement allocation process, among other conditions,” said San Diego-based Sempra.
Plaintiffs
“The second and third agreements involve settlement with a class estimated to include at least 23,000 properties and the dismissal of the named plaintiffs in a putative business class action, both of which are subject to court approval,” explained Sempra.
In addition to operating the Cameron liquefaction plant at Hackberry on the Gulf Coast, Sempra is also transforming its Costa Azul LNG terminal on the Pacific Coast of Mexico into an export plant.
The Aliso Canyon storage settlement comes as Sempra is in the midst of a restructuring.
The Cameron and Costa Azul plants and various power and pipeline assets in Mexico and elsewhere will be grouped into a new Sempra North American LNG and gas platform called Sempra Infrastructure Partners.
“These Aliso Canyon agreements will help the community and our company work toward putting this difficult chapter behind us,” said Scott Drury, Chief Executive of SoCalGas.
“In the years since the leak, SoCalGas has worked alongside regulators, technical experts, and our neighbors to enhance safety at all our underground storage facilities,” added Drury.
“As a result, our storage facilities operate by what regulators and experts have called some of the most rigorous safety standards in the country,” he stated.
A court in 2019 approved a separate $119.5M settlement between SoCalGas and various state agencies in relation to the leak.
The Los Angeles City Council in May 2021 urged California Governor Gavin Newsom to initiate an accelerated plan to close the storage facility.
State regulators had cleared SoCalGas to resume injections at Aliso Canyon in mid-2017.
However, SoCalGas has stated that the Aliso Canyon storage continues to play a vital role in the resiliency of California’s energy system, supporting intermittent solar and wind supply.
California has set a goal of achieving a fossil-free power generation mix by 2045 and is building out more solar and wind power as well as emission-free buildings while promoting electric automobiles.
The Democratic Party-run state has always rejected large-scale LNG imports or transfers, though continues to suffer major natural gas, power and water shortages blamed on planning policies dictated over the years by environmental activists.
