Ted Thomas On The Oregon LNG Open House - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - Warrenton, Oregon

Here we go again. Oregon LNG the successor of the original bankrupt Cal-Pine company through the Leucadia fiasco has gotten around to their obligatory dog and pony show. On hand in their unused orange vest issued just for the occasion was a selection of Carpenters, Operator Engineers and Pipe Fitters. Supporters at the door greeted you with the sign in sheet, Peter Hansen was there along with new representatives from CM2H. In the entrance there was the large cardboard pictures describing this new version of their plans. In an adjoining room there was coffee and cookies to accompany the 8.5 minute power point presentation. In the presentation they describe the terminal as "bi-directional," promise more than 3100 construction jobs and thousands of full time permanent jobs, millions in tax revenues, and more.
I confronted Peter Hansen and reminded him of the meeting we both attended at the port of Astoria around the time that OLNG was suing the port when I suggested to him that what he was secretly intending from the outset was to build an export plant. At that time he led me to believe that I should take his word that that would never happen. I told him then that I didn't believe him and to mark my words that it will in fact come out eventually that that is the case.
Somehow "I told you so" is just inadequate to convey the dramatic revelation available for inspection today at the open house presentation put on in Warrenton tonight. As I predicted years ago the OLNG terminal was always intended to be an export terminal. The parties involved in the scheme to export our sovereign natural resources have represented them selves as devising import facilities. they said they would build a power station and use the waste heat they said they would bring jobs they said they would be safe. They said so many things.
In fact their monopolist fellow travelers like El Paso withheld gas supplies in order to raise prices artificially. That is the point of their admitted "Peak Shaver" : to withhold natural gas from the domestic market and force the price up. Now are we are to understand that they want to build the capacity to export it to foreign markets altogether. Even they admit that this will drive the price up.
In their powerpoint presentation they promise that they will export only Canadian gas. That if we do not the Canadians will. Can we trust anything that they say. They said they would import and not export natural gas. They lied about that. I am not psychic there is no way to tell if someone is lying to you other than their own history. It is a tradition of my people to hold that the only way to tell if a person is a lier is their past history of truthfulness. When someone make a habit of not telling the truth you need not consider anything they say as being true. That is why telling the truth always is to terribly important to my people. Without our integrity no one will trust you.
Integrity... from the word Integer as in one ... as in one faced... as opposed to being two faced. These profit mongers are only interested in making money. They openly admit to desiring to do so by buying our natural gas to resell to ourselves if you have the money or to asian markets at a profit. The poor desperate dupes they coned into supporting them with exaggerated promises of jobs. Promises of tax revenue for us I suppose and for our children.
OLNG's representative would have us believe that the Asian markets could not compete with ours that they could not buy enough to affect the local market. If this were so then why are they planning the investment of billions to build export terminal capacity? This account of affairs is not in accordance with the projected growth of the Asian markets. The asian markets will grow to larger than our own in a few brief years.
The price of natural gas in such an outcome will not increase by only 2.3% as OLNG purports, it will rise to the world market rate and maybe more as the fetish of speculation mismanages its distribution. Increases of 100, 200% or more will not be unlikely and in any account what guaranty does OLNG make that it won't increase by that much and what do think such a promise is worth after all the promises that they have already broken. The fragile so called recovery we are living through will collapse and our only competitive advantage of adequate supplies of energy will evaporate under the insatiable onslaught the voracious Asian energy appetite.
In school I had it drummed into my head that proper name given to a nation that exports raw materials and imports value added finished good is a colony. We export raw logs and import Big Box stores full of every conceivable finished good most all from China. Our people are unemployed and we lead the world in low wage jobs. Some now want to export coal and OLNG wants to export natural gas. Is there no end to America's torment?
Ted