As Coast Guard and tugboat crews tended last night to a liquefied natural gas tanker crippled off Cape Cod, critics of LNG deliveries through Boston Harbor called the breakdown another warning of the threat the tankers could pose to the Hub.
The 933-foot Spanish-flagged LNG tanker Catalunya Spirit was heading from Trinidad to the LNG facility in Everett when its propulsion system shut down about 3 a.m. Monday, apparently because of a computer malfunction, the Coast Guard said.
After hours drifting at sea, the 5-year-old vessel was corraled by four tugboats about 25 miles east of Provincetown, where technicians were working last evening to fix it under Coast Guard oversight.
The engine breakdown was apparently the first such incident in the 27 years of LNG shipments to the Suez Distrigas facility in Everett.
Many local officials, including Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, have long feared that an attack by terrorists or saboteurs on LNG tankers carrying some 120,000 cubic meters of fuel could unleash a catastrophic firestorm.
The idea that a disabled tanker could float, vulnerable, near the densely populated harborfront, some officials said, was terrifying.
Senator Anthony Galluccio - a Cambridge Democrat whose district includes Charlestown, where LNG tankers pass near waterfront condominiums - called the breakdown "pretty scary and pretty alarming."
"Your first concern was, what if this happened closer to shore and you started playing worst-case scenarios," he said. "It's of deep concern."
Dorothy Joyce, a spokeswoman for Menino, called the breakdown another reason to phase out LNG traffic in the harbor - ships come as often as every four days - and speed up completion of offshore delivery facilities now under construction in Massachusetts Bay.
"We'd still rather it not come through the city; we'd rather it not come through the harbor," Joyce said. Despite stringent Coast Guard security, she said, "there are some things you just can't protect against."
Coast Guard officials and ship owner Teekay Corp. of Vancouver, British Columbia, which operates 18 other LNG tankers, called the breakdown an extremely rare event that was being handled properly and did not pose any safety risks.
Coast Guard Captain Gail Kulisch, Boston's captain of the port, said that if the Catalunya Spirit had broken down in the harbor, harbor pilot tugboats would have kept it moving. "That vessel would be under positive control and would be safely moved" in and out of Everett, Kulisch said.
"Within the harbor itself, our LNG ships are under full escort by harbor pilot tugboats to ensure their direct and efficient passage," said Julie Vitek, a spokeswoman for Suez Distrigas. Vitek said the Everett plant has safely received 800 LNG shipments since opening in 1971.
Despite high demand for natural gas during this week's cold snap, energy officials said they did not fear the tanker stranding would cause a gas shortage.
The Distrigas facility, which takes chilled gas and turns it from liquid into vapor, supplies about 20 percent of all natural gas used in New England, and as much as 35 percent on cold winter days when demand taxes available supply in pipelines from eastern and western Canada and the Gulf of Mexico.
"From a supply perspective, we should be fine," said Thomas M. Kiley, president of the Northeast Gas Association.
"We don't foresee any problems with supply or reliability." Another fully loaded LNG tanker is en route to Boston from Trinidad, Kiley said, but because of homeland security precautions, officials never say when they are due to arrive in the harbor.
David Graves, a spokesman for National Grid, which owns the former Boston Gas Co. and other gas utilities in Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, agreed, saying: "It would have little or no impact if this vessel should not get to Distrigas. It hasn't been bitterly cold for a long period of time, and supplies are adequate."
If the Hub faced a natural gas shortage, officials would probably shut down schools and government offices and urge homeowners and businesses to turn down the heat to conserve available fuel.
New England gets about 40 percent of its electricity from gas-fired power plants.
Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in the City & Region section about a disabled liquefied natural gas tanker erroneously reported what company owns two tugboats, the Freedom and the Liberty, that were involved in bringing the tanker back to port. The tugboats are owned by Boston Towing & Transportation, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Reinauer Corp. LLC of New York.
