Don't Forget About Mexico.

Today's Los Angeles Times profiles "the other" LNG project-- Costa Azul, which is being built by Sempra north of Ensenada on Mexico's Baja peninsula. It seems that while competing LNG projects in California have been busy beating their respective heads against a wall in their daily tangle with government red tape and community opposition, Sempra has been quietly forging ahead.

Costa Azul is actually ahead of schedule and could begin processing as much as 1 billion cubic feet of gas as early as 2008.

This ups the ante for competing LNG projects in California because once Sempra's project comes on line, there is really only going to be enough marketplace demand for one other project. That means either Cabrillo Port or Long Beach Harbor bites the dust. Now that the stakes have been raised, look for increased maneuvering by both supporters and detractors of both projects.

The Malibu millionaires surely will continue to play the "victim" card, at least for a while-- the holidays are approaching, which is "party season" then, before you know it, it's "Oscar season" (even privileged "activists" need to keep their priorirties straight!)

And in Long Beach, you can expect to see area residents turn up the volume in their opposition to the LNG terminal that Sound Energy Solutions wants to put in the middle of their community.

Between these two projects, the choice seems astonishingly simple-- an invisible offsore, floating facility, or a massive industrial complex in the middle of an urban neighborhood. But, this is California where nothing ever makes any sense so who knows how this is going to turn out.