An appellate court upheld a ruling in favour of developers over plans to ship coal through the city. An Alameda County judge ruled in 2023 that Oakland had breached its contract with a developer who had plans to build a coal export terminal on a former Army base in West Oakland near the port, according to a ruling by a three-judge panel of the state’s First Appellate District Court of Appeal on Friday, 24 October 2025.
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The ruling will see Oakland’s city hall to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to the plan’s sponsors for alleged “tortious interference” with the project.
The story started back in 2009, when California developer Phil Tagami began work on a large-scale multi-use project to re-purpose the old Army Base, a large military dock complex, and rename it the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT). In 2015, it became clear to the city and to local activists that a likely centerpiece of the project would be a rail-to-dock coal terminal operated by the commercial tenant, Insight Terminal Solutions (ITS). Oakland – backed by multiple environmental law NGOs – decided to resist the development project, citing the potential effects of coal dust on nearby residents. Under Mayor Barbara Lee, the city used a “pattern of interference” to block ITS from moving ahead with securing financing and developing the project, resulting in ITS’ bankruptcy.
The judgment in the case could be exceptionally large. The city’s expert witness put it at US$230 million, and ITS claims that the total comes to about US$670 million. This amounts to about 10-30 percent of the city’s annual operating budget. Oakland has already been fighting to close a nine-digit budget deficit, even before the added burden of a nine-digit court judgment.
The City of Oakland has been losing legal battles related to the terminal project for years. In September, the California Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a lower court decision that paved the way for construction to proceed at last. According to lead developer Phil Tagami, the project could be completed and the first shipment under way as early as 2028.
The terminal is of great interest to Wyoming coal producers, who see it as a lifeline to new markets in Asia. It is one of the few fossil fuel terminal projects to have a chance at breaching the “thin green line” of environmental opposition on the US West Coast, and it is a rare opportunity for land-locked coal miners in the Intermountain West to find customers outside of the US for their product.