LNG

Venture Global LNG, the developer of the Plaquemines export plant on the Mississippi River, expects in new regulatory filings to begin production around mid-2024 at the eighth US LNG export facility and the second plant owned and operated by Venture Global.

The Arlington, Virginia-based company has requested approval from the US Department of Energy’s Fossil Fuels body to receive up to three imported LNG cargoes as part of the Plaquemines commissioning process to cool down equipment ahead of the plant start-up.

Plaquemines has also asked for and received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval for natural gas supply to be delivered on its Gator Express pipeline venture.

“Plaquemines LNG submitted Volume 321 of the Implementation Plan, which contained information regarding the introduction of gas to the gas gate,” said the FERC filing.

LNG confidential

Plaquemines also requested that the response and attachments “be treated as both privileged and confidential and withheld from public disclosure” as they contain proprietary information used by Plaquemines LNG and its third-party consultants that is “customarily treated” as privileged and confidential.

Even though the role of the FERC is to inform the public about energy developments Venture Global has almost permanently requested non-disclosure by the FERC as the information “could result in commercial and competitive harm” to Plaquemines LNG and its consultants.

The Plaquemines liquefaction facility is on a 630-acre site with 1.3 miles of Mississippi River frontage.

The Gator Express venture comprises two pipelines, each with capacity of around 1.9 billion cubic feet per day to deliver natural gas from pipeline interconnections to the Plaquemines plant located about 20 miles south of New Orleans.

The liquefaction plant’s total planned capacity is 20 million tonnes per annum with the first phase to produce 10 MTPA.

Long commissioning

Venture Global's existing Calcasieu Pass plant in Louisiana shipped its first cargo in March 2022 and comprises 18 small-scale modular liquefaction Trains each with 0.626 million tonnes per annum of capacity and configured in nine blocks for total nameplate output of 11.26 MTPA.

In addition to the Plaquemines plant Venture Global is developing the CP2 project, so called because it will be built adjacent to the Calcasieu Pass facility, and the Delta LNG plant.

The three newer plants will each have nameplate capacity of around 20 MTPA.

Venture Global has signed up many energy companies from around the world as long-term customers for its various projects.

The company has also been the subject of complaints and arbitration proceedings brought by customers such as Shell and BP over the commissioning process at Calcasieu Pass.

The commissioning has lasted for more than two years, and thus deprived customers of contracted cargoes available once commissioning comes to an end and the commercial start-up begins.

FERC finally intervened in the long-running dispute between Venture Global LNG and its Calcasieu Pass LNG export plant in Louisiana and major customers over delays in activating sales and purchase agreements (SPAs) for contract cargoes.

The regulator asked Venture Global to explain why it has extensively filed “confidential” documents in relation to the Calcasieu Pass export project.

The Canadian Woodfibre LNG project, a mid-scale venture being developed by the Asia-based company Pacific Oil and Gas Ltd, a subsidiary of Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) group, has signed a second supply agreement with UK major BP.

The Woodfibre project said its latest Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) was with BP Gas Marketing for the delivery of 750,000 tonnes of LNG on a free on board (FOB) basis over 15 years.

This SPA will increase BP’s total LNG off-take to 1.5 million tonnes per annum, over 70 percent of Woodfibre LNG’s future annual production.

The Woodfibre plant is sited on a brownfield site of a former pulp mill, about 7 kilometre from the town of Squamish and 70km northeast of Vancouver in the province of British Columbia.

It was granted a construction permit back in July 2019 by the provincial authorities to proceed with building, though the developers have so far declined to take a final investment decision.

The plant when completed will comprise a facility with output of around 2.1 MTPA of LNG and storage tanks with 250,000 cubic metres of capacity.

“Forward-looking companies like BP are turning to projects like ours for sustainable, stable gas that will supply a clean energy mix,” said Ratnesh Bedi, Pacific Oil & Gas President.

“We look forward to working with BP to deliver Canadian natural gas from one of the lowest carbon-footprint LNG facilities in the world,” added Bedi.

Woodfibre has had close cooperation with the native North American Squamish First Nation in the area of the proposed plant.

In late 2020, the BC Environmental Assessment Office also granted local utility and infrastructure company FortisBC a five-year extension to its environmental certificate for a new 47-kilometre pipeline that will supply natural gas to the Woodfibre facility.

In the meantime, Woodfibre has been working on the remediation of its site

Woodfibre has said it could make an investment decision this year to put the project on track to start commercial operations in 2025.

The only other LNG export project moving forward in Canada is also in British Columbia, the LNG Canada project led by Royal Dutch Shell and with mainly Asian joint investors.

Shell’s partners in the plant currently under construction near the town of Kitimat are PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan, Petronas of Malaysia and Korea Gas Corp.

However, LNG Canada is on a larger scale than Woodfibre with around 20 MTPA of output expected in the first phase of development using some of the massive untapped natural gas resources in the northeast of BC province.