A.G. Gancarski
According to Allen Fore, the VP for public affairs at Kinder Morgan, the planned Palmetto Pipeline project, which would bring refined petroleum south through Savannah to Jacksonville, is potentially an important component for Jacksonville becoming an “energy hub.”
Fore talked to FloridaPolitics.com about the project on Friday morning at the Florida Energy Summit, touching on a variety of topics ranging from environmental impacts to market benefits.
The benefit of the project, for Northeast Florida, is simple.
“The project is designed to bring additional refined products to Florida via pipeline,” Fore said.
Right now, he adds, “Jacksonville is not served by a refined products pipeline,” instead getting its product via truck and ship.
The pipeline, says Fore, contributes to the city’s “diverse energy portfolio,” making Jacksonville more competitive, and creating a “redundancy system” that is not affected by the vagaries of weather, such as tropical storms.
As well, there is a consumer benefit.
“Additional supply helps prices… by giving distributors more choices,” Fore says, regarding the 50,000 barrels a day that the pipeline would bring into the “Jacksonville market.”
Describing the “price impact” as “significant,” Fore contends that a new source would have a net positive impact, citing the 45 cent difference in gas prices between Augusta (serviced by the Plantation Pipeline, and flush with storage facilities) and Savannah (which does not have a pipeline, but would be served by the Palmetto Pipeline.)
Also significant, Fore says, is “customer interest,” gauged during the “analysis and research” Kinder Morgan does before announcing, a process which includes doing what is necessary to meet permitting regulations.
“We are very familiar with permitting agencies,” Fore relates, as well as being cognizant of environmental impacts.
Kinder Morgan has 4,000 miles of pipeline in Florida, including the Central Florida Pipeline between Orlando and Tampa.
Of course, any project like this raises the interest of environmentalists, and there have been criticisms in Georgia and South Carolina.
Fore cites the 80 year history Kinder Morgan has in Georgia as evidence that the company addresses the concerns of landowners, many of whose concerns are allayed by one on one conversations at their kitchen tables with field surveyors, who often learn about the properties they seek to build pipelines on.
“Our history is that at the end of the day we reach agreements with 99 percent of landowners,” Fore related.
The pipelines, buried 4 feet underground, allow the landowners to farm on the property, and use it in any other way they see fit.
The oil and gas industry is a job machine: in Georgia, 130,000 jobs are tied to the industry.
The company has already gotten 85% approval for surveying, Fore says.
Kinder Morgan is mindful of “co-location,” putting pipelines next to infrastructure, and avoiding “environmentally sensitive areas,” Fore adds.
Though a “lot of people make loud comments in opposition,” Fore continues, energy is critical to the economy, and Kinder Morgan sees itself, and this project, as essential to the “energy revolution.”
One third of this product would hit the Jacksonville market, though it is undetermined how much of it would stay in Florida.
“It could go south of Jacksonville,” Fore says, though it also could service south Georgia.
Though plenty of concern has been raised about Jacksonville’s port not being deep enough for Panamax ships, for Fore’s purposes, JAXPORT is already viable.
The pipeline would only augment Jacksonville’s position as a regional “energy hub,” he added.
Construction is slated to start in the spring, and the Palmetto Pipeline will be fully online by July 2017, according to the current estimates.
