It is claiming that shipping Powder River Basin coal from the facility is not feasible – but it may have other plans.
According to a memorandum from Port Corpus Christi obtained by ILN, the issue of approving the termination request from Ambre Energy North America was discussed this week at a commission meeting, with the company citing a decline in the export coal market.
“The coal export market has dramatically declined in the last three years, and Ambre no longer considers a coal export terminal viable in this area,” the documentation said.
As a result, Ambre has agreed to pay all of the base rent through the end of 2013 and a termination fee of $217,500 for base rent in 2014; the termination fee is equal to the base rent for the full 12-month period of 2014, port officials said, and will be paid in installments of $18,125 monthly.
In the event the port is able to lease all or part of the property prior to the end of next year, it said it will credit Ambre back against its termination fee obligation.
The company had planned to ship 1.5-2.5Mt from the facility annually. It now joins a growing list of other coal terminals in the Pacific Northwest and Gulf region that have been tabled or completed abandoned over the last two years.
However, Ambre Energy may not be completely done with its plans for exporting coal altogether.
A company spokesman told NPR Wednesday that its decision to pull out of Corpus Christi was part of its strategy to ultimately “establish a US coal export business through the Pacific Northwest, and to do so as quickly as possible”
Corpus Christi officials added that there are no more plans to ship coal from the city now that Ambre’s proposal has been scrapped.
In the meantime, the disappearance of the terminal facility from the southern Texas radar was met favorably by the Sierra Club, which has opposed the plans from the onset.
In fact, according to the environmentalists, Ambre’s efforts in the export sector have been a “comedy of errors” everywhere it has gone.
“[E]specially in the Northwest, where the company has faced years of growing public outrage over its attempts to develop coal export terminals in Washington and Oregon,” the group said.
“With every passing year, Ambre's problems seem to grow.”
The Sierra Club cited a permit application Ambre submitted in 2010 to ship 5Mtpa from the proposed Longview facility. That application, it said, was pulled in 2011 when public records requests revealed that 60Mtpa was planned for export through the facility.
The Longview facility is now proposed to ship 44Mt.
It also pointed to Ambre’s plans in 2012 to list on the Australia Stock Exchange; over the last six months of that year, it noted, the company essentially “hemorrhaged” $30 million.
“This is the third coal export project that has been canceled in this region,” Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter chair Hal Suter said of the now-sunken proposal.
“Ambre’s failure is a huge relief for Corpus Christi residents and it’s a clear sign of an accelerating shift away from coal.
“Texans don’t want coal, Gulf states don’t want coal and international markets don’t want it either.”
Another group spokesperson told NPR that another dropped terminal plan should be taken as a sign of what is to come.
“Folks do not want coal export terminals, they don’t want coal coming through their backyards, and they don’t want it to be burned in Asia,” spokeswoman Krista Collard said.
“So I think it’s just another sign that they’re going to go down here in the Northwest.”
