Pangea LNG Holdings, a company headed by the best-known woman executive in the industry, Kathleen Eisbrenner, and which is involved in a Floating LNG project offshore Israel, said it had also begun the process of seeking approvals for an LNG liquefaction plant at Corpus Christi Bay on the Gulf coast of Texas.
Pangea has filed an application with the US Department of Energy seeking authority to export up to 8 million tonnes per annum of LNG.
Eisbrenner, Pangea's Chief Executive and former Executive Vice President of Global LNG at Shell, said: "We expect there to be several successful LNG export projects on the Texas Coast in the coming years because of the large new natural gas reserves in North America.
"Exporting LNG will help stabilize US natural gas prices sustain drilling and production jobs in South Texas, and stimulate investment in developing additional gas reserve," Eisbrenner said
The company is seeking to export cargoes to all current and future countries with which the US has a Free Trade Agreement, and will also file a similar application for exports to non-FTA countries, such as Japan and China.
The project is located in the city of Ingleside on the La Quinta Ship Channel which is part of the Port of Corpus Christi. The project will be known as South Texas LNG Export.
The LNG plant will be located on a portion of a 550-acre site which includes half a mile of frontage on the federally-maintained deepwater ship channel.
Pangea has had the site under option since June. A separate pipeline project would connect the LNG plant to the extensive interstate and intrastate natural gas transmission pipeline network in South Texas.
Pangea is an energy project and investment company also involved in the development of the FLNG venture in the East Mediterranean involving companies including Noble Energy and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering.
John Godbold, project director for Pangea LNG, said an intensive project feasibility and preliminary design process is now underway on the South Texas project.
The assessment is being conducted by US LNG engineering company CB&I. The South Texas LNG Export project will require regulatory approval from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
"If this process moves forward on schedule the South Texas LNG plant could be in operation by 2018," Pangea said.
