California-based WesPac Midstream has killed off its plans for a $150m oil terminal in San Francisco’s Bay Area, according to Reuters and the Associated Press. The company cited low oil prices as its main reason for aborting the plan.
The original concept, announced in 2011, was for a facility that would receive, store and transfer crude oil on to ships and trains or by pipeline. It was to have been built in Pittsburg, California, in the East Bay.
WesPac develops, constructs, owns, and operates energy infrastructure throughout North America.
In this case it had already dropped the rail element of the project’s transport links earlier this year after a number of incidents where oil-carrying trains crashed in flames around North America, raising safety concerns.
Now the company has found customers lukewarm to the idea while the oil price is at current lows and the glut of supply makes any price rises unlikely in the foreseeable future. Hence the whole project has been dropped.
Local residents’ groups and environmentalists had objected to the plan on grounds that the terminal would have posed a dangerous explosion risk and a pollution source.
