Australian coal giant Ambre Energy hopes to open a $250 million Columbia River coal export terminal by late next year.
That won’t likely happen if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decides to require an environmental impact statement. The exhaustive regulatory procedure could delay Ambre’s aspirations by several years.
The pending ruling — which the Corps could make by the end of summer — marks a critical decision point for the so-called Morrow Pacific Project, arguably the most advanced of the three major terminal proposals that involve shuttling coal from the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming to Asia by way of the Portland region.