Japan Bank for International Cooperation Launches Investigation of Freeport LNG Following Community Complaints

Contacts: Weng Cahiles, Oil Change International – [email protected], +63-968-5399514 (GMT+ 8)
Rebecca Stoner, Oil Change International – [email protected], +1-917-561-2607 (GMT-4)

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) will investigate complaints filed by three Texas community leaders over its financing of the Freeport Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export project. Launching the investigation is an important first step, but accountability will ultimately depend on how JBIC conducts its research and whether it acts on its findings and stops financing gas projects. 

Community leaders urge JBIC to send representatives to Freeport, Texas to investigate the project, interview impacted community members, and host an open-door community meeting to hear from residents. 

The complaints, delivered directly to Japanese financiers in Tokyo this May, document evidence of pollution, repeated safety and operational failures, and health impacts experienced by community members who live near the facility. Japanese public finance institutions have provided nearly $3.8 billion to support the project, including a $2.6 billion loan from JBIC. Community leaders say the decision to continue financing ignores both the evidence presented in the complaints and JBIC’s own environmental and social guidelines. 

Longtime residents and community leaders of the Texas Gulf South have seen families and neighbors develop asthma, cancer, and die prematurely following exposure to toxic pollution created by petrochemical and LNG facilities. In 2022, they witnessed Freeport LNG explode, sending a fireball 450 feet into the sky. The explosion injured those nearby and released almost 120,000 cubic feet of LNG.

Community leaders are yet to receive a response from Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI), another Japanese public institution named in the complaint. Filers encourage NEXI to do its due diligence and proceed with its own investigation into its financing of the Freeport LNG project.

QUOTES:
Melanie Oldham, Founder and Executive Director, Better Brazoria: Clean Air and Water: “We are encouraged that JBIC is taking our complaint seriously. We challenge them to come to Freeport to talk directly to the community and see with their own eyes what their $2.6 billion investment has done to our community. The only responsible outcome of this investigation is to cut off financing for Freeport LNG. Anything short of this tells us that they understand that this project threatens my community’s health and safety and decided to keep funding it anyway.”

Manning Rollerson, Founder and Director, Freeport Haven Project: “I’ve traveled to Tokyo twice to meet Japanese financiers and tell them, face to face, what their funding of Freeport LNG has done to my community. Now it is time for them to come to Freeport, hear from the families living in the shadow of this plant, and make the decision to stop financing this project immediately.” 

Gwendolyn Jones, Founder, Climate Conversation Brazoria County: “Launching this investigation is only a step towards accountability. JBIC must come to Freeport to see the damage they’re funding. There is only one outcome that matters to us: JBIC ending their financing of Freeport LNG. Every day they keep funding this plant, they are choosing this project over our health. It is time for Japanese financiers to walk away from this project.” 

Allie Rosenbluth, US Program Co-Manager at Oil Change International: “We’re encouraged that JBIC has agreed to investigate the risky, polluting, and dangerous Freeport LNG project, but accountability isn’t measured by opening a case; it’s measured by what happens next. The Freeport community deserves a thorough, transparent investigation that follows the evidence wherever it leads. Japan must stop financing these dangerous, polluting, and expensive fossil fuel projects.”

Ayumi Fukakusa, Executive Director, Friends of the Earth Japan: “While a formal investigation into objections raised against the financing of the Freeport LNG project marks an important step, JBIC continues to support new LNG projects. Notably, regarding a gas project in Ohio, they proceeded with financing without an environmental impact assessment. The environmental and social impacts associated with these projects are not unique to Freeport LNG; rather, they represent a recurring pattern observed in other LNG and fossil fuel projects financed by them. Systemic solutions and reforms are required to prevent the adverse impacts that such project financing inflicts on the environment and local communities.”

Rachel Ho, Asia Energy Finance Campaigner, Market Forces: “Gas is not the clean transition fuel Japan claims it to be: Freeport LNG exemplifies the risk and damage central to these projects. JBIC’s decision to undertake this investigation is a critical step in the right direction, and its outcomes need to inform Japan’s plans for investment in gas in the United States, which would violate numerous risk management, human rights, and environmental principles and standards, including the Equator Principles.”