Regional Impact
Port Dolphin conducted a two-year program to earn community and state government support for the project. We started out by meeting one-on-one with local elected officials and staff to gain a good understanding of the community’s concerns, and them addressed them directly. With these insights, we rerouted our pipeline twice — once to avoid environmentally sensitive areas and once to minimize impacts to sand resources used to replenish local beaches — demonstrating our commitment to protecting the local environment while making the entire state cleaner.
As a new source of natural gas for electric utilities, Port Dolphin will provide increased competition and give power producers greater flexibility, saving area consumers and businesses tens of millions of dollars. In fact, we entered into a long-term agreement with the State of Florida defining specific actions in building and operating the new deepwater port, as a result, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist formally approved the project on Sept. 11, 2009, which cleared the way for Port Dolphin to receive its deepwater port license. In addition, the Board of County Commissioners of Manatee County voted their support of the project, as did the Longboat Key Town Commission, validating that natural gas is a crucial part of Florida future.
During construction and over the life of the project, Port Dolphin will provide economic benefits to the community of more than $150 million.
- Economic benefits during construction will total more than $42 million.
- The creation of 82 construction-related jobs will bring an estimated $2 million into the local economy
- Increased revenues of some $1.5 million will flow to state and local governments from taxes and fees.
- Benefits to Port Manatee from short-term and long-term improvements will exceed $16 million and provide infrastructure to the port that will benefit existing and future tenants.
- During construction, spending on food, housing and supplies is estimated to be approximately $22 million.
Further, Port Dolphin is committed to being a good neighbor. The company has pledged to contribute $3 million toward renewable energy research and development, and 500,000 to local support cultural, recreational and marine educational facilities in the community.