A federal official has offered one reason why local liquefied natural gas developers haven’t received a hearing before federal regulators.

The chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission remains silent on the matter, but a project manager in the U.S. Office of Energy Projects filed a letter Wednesday regarding the delay.

Todd Ruhkamp said he was confused by a September letter Jordan Cove Energy Project, which is proposing an LNG import terminal on Coos Bay’s North Spit, sent to FERC requesting a hearing at that month’s meeting.

The developers argued in the letter that their project is in “direct competition” with LNG terminals proposed in the vicinity and the delay in FERC’s approval process has put the project at risk of not securing contracts from LNG suppliers.

Ruhkamp said in his letter that Jordan Cove’s filing contradicted previous information suggesting shippers had already reached agreements with the Coos Bay project.

“This seeming contradiction has caused some amount of confusion and this matter needs to be clarified prior to Commission consideration of the Project,” Ruhkamp wrote.

Jordan Cove Project Manager Bob Braddock said Ruhkamp appears to have confused contracts for space on the pipeline with contracts for the terminal. He plans to file a letter by the end of the week addressing the concern.

The pipeline has executed precedent agreements with companies in the United States interested in natural gas. But Jordan Cove is still competing with other LNG terminals around the Pacific Rim for contracts from LNG shippers.

“Clearly, they misinterpreted something,” he said.

The letter was the first response to the company’s requests for a hearing before FERC. Braddock wasn’t sure why the letter came from Ruhkamp, who works in the division of pipeline certificates and had never filed a letter with Jordan Cove.

“I can’t tell you how this works its way through the system,” he said. “But I guess we’ve showed up on their radar screen.”

Several supporters of the project filed letters with FERC on Wednesday, including Jon Barton, chairman of the South Coast Development Council, and Pam de Jong, a board director on the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce. They called on FERC to give Jordan Cove an up-or-down vote, joining the Port of Coos Bay in advocating for a decision.

Most LNG terminal projects wait about three months after an environmental impact statement is released for FERC to decide their cases. Jordan Cove has been waiting since May.