The Pier 400, Berth 408 Project will include the development of Berth 408 on Pier 400 to accept large tankers, known as Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), up to 325,000 dead weight tons (DWT). Such vessels can carry up to 2,500,000 barrels of crude oil. The typical offloading time would range from 18 to 30 hours per vessel. The number of ship calls per month is expected to up to 18, depending on the tanker size. Presently, the water depth for the proposed berth can accommodate large tankers with a draft of up to 74 feet, which allows access to most VLCCs in the world fleet. Therefore, the proposed Pier 400, Berth 408 Project would not require any dredging.

The facility will be designed to allow rapid cargo offloading to minimize the time a vessel remains in port. Since vessel emissions are dependent upon how much time a vessel spends at berth, shorter berth times translate to lower emissions, especially when compared to other existing crude oil marine terminals. The Pier 400, Berth 408 Project will also include the construction of storage facilities to accommodate up to 4 million barrels of crude oil. Vessels will no longer have to wait for storage capacity to become available in order to offload their cargo. Rapid offloading will accommodate a fully loaded VLCC and decrease relative emissions from vessels.

During offloading, bulk liquids would be transported to new storage facilities within the Port via a new, 42-inch underground pipeline. Another new underground pipeline will connect the stage facilities to the Valero refinery and to the existing pipeline distribution system. All new pipelines will be underground wherever possible. All crude oil offloaded at the facility will be shipped via pipeline. The only vehicle traffic associated with the Pier 400, Berth 408 Project’s operations will be vehicles for the project employees, visitors, and occasional deliveries of supplies.

The Pier 400, Berth 408 Project will include the construction of up to 4 million barrels of new, aboveground storage tanks for the storage of crude oil and partially refined crude oil. No refined petroleum products would be stored in the new tanks. The new tanks will be constructed on several adjacent parcels on Terminal Island and on Pier 400. All new storage tanks will be equipped with Best Available Control Technology (BACT) to reduce emissions to the maximum extent possible and will comply with the rules and regulations of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD). Storage tank areas are to be surrounded by fencing to restrict access and will be landscaped.

The proposed project will incorporate the following features to reduce emissions of air contaminants and protect the environment:

• Electric-powered shore-side pumps will be installed to move the bulk liquids through the pipeline, thereby minimizing the use of the vessel pumps and reducing fuel usage and emissions from the vessels.
• The use of high-capacity pumps and the large diameter pipeline assure maximum offloading rates, thereby reducing the time the vessel remains in port.
• Sufficient new tankage will be constructed to receive the entire cargo of a large tanker without delays due to lack of receiving capacity.
• Pacific L. A. Marine Terminal LLC will design and incorporate the necessary components to make Alternative Marine Power (AMP)(cold ironing) available for vessels capable of using such facilities. This design feature will enable AMP-compatible ships to use onshore power, thereby minimizing emissions.
• The facility will operate under a permit issued by the SCAQMD that includes an emissions cap limiting vessel emissions.
• All facility emissions, including the vessel emissions represented by the facility emissions cap, will be offset by the purchase of Emission Reduction Credits (ERCs).
• Customers utilizing the facility would have incentives to use cleaner, low-sulfur fuels and/or shore-side pumps.
• Pacific L. A. Marine Terminal LLC will require customers using the new berth to use low-sulfur fuel, marine distillate fuel, for offloading operations and hotelling.

Vessel size, offloading speed, and the number of vessels offloading in a given period all play a direct role in air emissions. The project is designed to accommodate VLCCs with a total cargo of up to 2.5 million barrels. Emissions are lower from VLCCs on a per-barrel basis than from smaller tankers. However, initially, smaller vessels with a typical cargo capacity of 700,000 barrels (Aframax class vessels) are expected to comprise the larger portion of vessels offloading at the proposed berth. Based on the projected increase in demand for imported crude oil from the Middle East (Baker & O’Brian) and the inherent economy of scale in large-scale crude oil transport over long distances, it is expected that the number of VLCCs will increase throughout the life of the project and the number of smaller vessels coming into the berth will decrease. Therefore, project emissions per barrel offloaded will decrease over time.

It must be noted that the project’s permit-enforced air emissions cap limits air emissions at exactly the same level regardless of whether non-VLCCs or VLCCs are offloading at the proposed berth. Therefore, regardless of the size and frequency of vessels offloading at Berth 408, the annual emissions generated from the proposed Pier 400, Berth 408 Project will not change. By design, the project will include environmental measures that are not currently practiced in the industry. Crude oil tankers typically operate using heavy fuel oil (HFO) exclusively. Because HFO fuel is highly viscous and requires constant heating, tankers carry marine diesel oil (MDO) on board and typically use it only to flush out HFO from the fuel lines when coming into dry dock to prevent HFO solidification within the fuel system. MDO is not used by these types of vessels for propulsion, auxiliary power, or offloading purposes. The Pier 400, Berth 408 Project is fundamentally different from this typical scenario in that it proposes a fuel-replacement strategy.

Crude oil tankers must provide the energy and equipment to offload their cargo. Ninety-nine percent of the vessels in the world fleet today use steam-turbine-driven pumps to discharge the cargo to the onshore receiving facilities. Onboard boilers, typically using HFO, provide the steam needed for this operation. Typically, these onboard HFO boilers are used to push the oil to inland storage. The Pier 400, Berth 408 Project will include a shore-side system that will make available shore-side crude oil storage and onshore electrical pumps. The use of this shore-side system will reduce the need for the tanker to operate its onboard boilers when transporting its cargo to inland storage. Instead, the shore-side system will support the transport of crude oil with minimum power demand on the vessel’s steam-turbine-driven pumps, thereby minimizing emissions from vessel offloading operations.

Crude oil offloaded from the vessel will be pumped to aboveground, internal floating roof storage tanks. The storage tanks will be filled while the vessel is offloading, will store the crude oil until the customer who owns the material needs it, and then will be emptied when the customer requests the crude oil. Reactive organic gas (ROG) emissions will be released from the tanks during filling operations.

The Pier 400, Berth 408 Project proposes the construction of internal floating roof (IFR) storage tanks located at tank farms. An additional dock-side fueling system will be located at the dock for distillate storage. The IFR tank is enclosed by design. The roof of the IFR tank floats on the crude oil stored in the tank, thereby minimizing the formation of vapors in the headspace. For additional control, the projects IFR tanks will be equipped with a system of seals to close the gap between the floating roof and the wall of the tank. This will prevent vapors from entering the space above the floating roof. Such seals meet performance standards set by the SCAQMD in Rule 463. In addition, the tanks will be connected to vapor recovery to control emissions during tank refilling. This combination of measures constitutes BACT for crude oil storage tanks. All tanks for the proposed Pier 400, Berth 408 Project will comply with SCAQMD BACT requirements.