Rivers must be included in US gas infrastructure development: Tom Ridge

Pittsburgh (Platts)--28Oct2013/627 pm EDT/2227 GMT

Any discussion of how to move large volumes of US shale gas to demand centers should include not only pipelines and trucks, but also the nation's waterways, Tom Ridge, a former secretary of Homeland Security, said Monday.

Developing inland ports, such as those along the Ohio River, is "a huge opportunity," Ridge said at the Platts Appalachian Oil and Gas conference in Pittsburgh. "If we look at what natural gas can do for the regional economy, what we see now is just the tip of the iceberg."

Ridge, who also was a former governor of Pennsylvania, is now CEO of Ridge Global, a firm specializing in global trade security, infrastructure protection and other issues.
On the conference sidelines, Ridge said Pennsylvania "has access to the North, South, East and West, but it also has access to river ports, such as those along the Ohio River, [that] reaches the Mississippi River."

"That's another piece to this, and to effectively market that, it will need public-private collaboration," said Ridge, also a former governor of Pennsylvania. "One of the major challenges to shale development is infrastructure. If we're going to develop the natural gas industry, we need to look at distribution systems -- that's pipelines, trucks and rivers."

Still, waterways are only one part of moving shale gas, which Ridge sees as a key element in both national security and achieving energy independence.

"A high percentage of energy usage in New England is [liquefied natural gas]. There are concerns about the security of importing LNG," Ridge said, noting the importance of making sure such facilities are secure from threats, as well as the political risk of relying on sources of energy from outside of the US.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if the ports in Boston were exporting LNG to the Middle East, rather than importing it," he said.

--Stephanie Ritenbaugh, stephanie.ritenbaugh@platts.com
--Edited by Valarie Jackson, valarie.jackson@platts.com

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