![]() Two of Plaquemines LNG’s 130-foot cylindrical storage tanks tower above the swamp. GET HOME SAFE.” A large metal pipe extends out of the facility and over the highway, bound for the river. At a break in the levee wall that surrounds the property, a sign warns of the hazards inside: “WORK THE PLAN. It encompasses thousands of feet of coiled steel pipes for supercooling gas, 130-foot cylindrical storage tanks, and flare stacks that expel tall, airborne flames while the plant operates. Built on 630 acres of former swampland, an area larger than New Orleans’ French Quarter, the facility known as Plaquemines LNG extends along more than a mile of the Mississippi River. Towering over this patchwork of lowland and swamp is a massive liquefied natural gas export terminal owned by the Virginia-based Venture Global LNG, one of three in Louisiana. You’ll pass small fishing hamlets, clusters of trailers lining bayous, and carcasses of old houses. ![]() In this part of the Louisiana coast, most exit roads lead over levees and into wetlands traversed by local fishermen and pipeline workers. The border between land and water, solid ground and swamp, seems to dissolve. There, strip malls and highways give way to wide expanses of cypress and low marshes that are home to white-tailed deer, alligators, and pelicans. To visit the country’s newest hub for exporting liquefied gas to Europe, follow the Mississippi River southeast from New Orleans, past the recently shuttered Phillips 66 refinery in Alliance and deeper into Plaquemines Parish, a ribbon of land that flanks the lower Mississippi River before dropping off into the Gulf of Mexico. This story was co-published with The Lens. ![]()
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