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Missed Permits Suggest An Unlikely Future For Jordan Cove LNG Pipeline

Jordan Cove on Coos Bay, the site of a proposed liquified natural gas pipeline and export terminal.
Erik Neumann/JPR
Jordan Cove on Coos Bay, the site of a proposed liquified natural gas pipeline and export terminal.

Several missed deadlines for crucial permits for the development of the Jordan Cove liquified natural gas pipeline and terminal in Coos Bay are adding to questions about whether the project will go forward at all.

On Thursday the environmental non-profit Rogue Climate issued a statement citing four land-use permit deadlines for the project that the Canadian energy company Pembina has missed this summer, the most recent of which expired on August 11.

“It just spells an additional tea leaf for us to interpret that they’re moving away from this project all together,” says Tonia Moro, a Medford attorney who has represented pipeline opponents.

A spokesperson for the energy company did not respond to a request for comment.

In the past, Pembina has received support for the project from Coos County and the City of North Bend. But Moro says reapplying for these permits would be a significant step back in the regulatory process.

“By giving up these permits they’re giving up quite an investment into the regulatory process itself,” she says.

Last April Pembina said in a federal appeals court filing in Washington D.C. that it was “pausing” the gas export project as well as the 229-mile-long pipeline.

Erik Neumann is JPR's news director. He earned a master's degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and joined JPR as a reporter in 2019 after working at NPR member station KUER in Salt Lake City.