LNG

Bechtel Energy, the leading US and global liquefied natural gas engineering and construction company, said it was looking to hire for more than 500 roles for the Port Arthur LNG export project in Texas as building gets underway.

Sempra, the US utility whose LNG unit Sempra Infrastructure owns Cameron LNG in Louisiana and other projects in Mexico, has taken a positive final investment decision to build the Port Arthur liquefaction and export plant in Texas.

Chart Industries, the US LNG equipment-maker and industrial gases technology company, said it was given full notice to proceed on its processing and equipment activities for Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi Stage Three LNG expansion project.

The Corpus Christi expansion will consist of up to seven mid-scale Trains, each with an expected liquefaction capacity of about 1.49 MTPA with a total production capacity of more than 10 MTPA.

The existing Corpus Christy facility has nameplate capacity of 13.5 MTPA from three Trains.

In conjunction with the FNTP, Chart said it had booked an order valued at over $260 million, which is in addition to the approximately $50M already in backlog as of the end of March for this project.

The orders were received from Bechtel Inc, the lead engineer in the expansion of Cheniere’s Texas plant.

Chart said it would begin recognizing revenue on the Corpus Christi project in 2022 with a multi-year staggered delivery schedule for its equipment, including its IPMSR® processing technology.

Orders build

Chart's recent equipment orders from Gulf Coast LNG export projects have also included provisions for Venture Global’s Plaquemines Phase 1 project for 10 MTPA of LNG at a Louisiana site on the Mississippi River south of New Orleans.

Additionally Chart said the Driftwood project in Louisiana being developed by Houston-based Tellurian Inc. is anticipated to include over $350M of Chart content.

Chart itself continues to grow its technology and services offerings and completed the acquisition at the start of June 2022 of Fronti Fabrications Inc., a specialist in engineering, machining and welding for the cryogenic and gas sectors.

Chart, based in Atlanta, Georgia believes the acquisition will benefit the company’s growing order base in the “Big LNG” and small-scale LNG sectors in the US and elsewhere.

With over 20 years of experience in liquefaction, heat exchangers and cold boxes, Fronti adds a known team to expand Chart’s cold-box manufacturing capacity and capability.

Chart noted that Fronti, which was purchased for $20M, also supplies newbuild pressure vessels and performs repairs with certification to the code of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. 

US LNG plant developer Tellurian issued a limited notice to proceed to Bechtel under its engineering, procurement and construction contract to begin building phase one of the Driftwood LNG export facility near Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Bechtel Inc., the dominant US liquefaction plant and energy engineering company that once constructed three export facilities in Queensland in Australia alongside each other, said it would join with researchers from two American universities to develop technologies for living and working on the Moon.

The research awards were announced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) after it selected proposals from the Colorado School of Mines and Missouri Science & Technology.

“Bechtel started as a frontier company more than 120 years ago,” said Mike Costas, general manager of Bechtel’s Defense and Space business line.

“Now, we’re thinking about the next frontier. What will it take to build permanent infrastructure on the Moon? What an exciting time,” stated Costas.

Most of the current LNG export plants being constructed or proposed along the US Gulf Coast are in the hands of Bechtel.

One of the company’s most notable feats was building the three Australian LNG export plants Queensland Curtis LNG, Gladstone LNG and Australia-Pacific LNG and bringing the six processing Trains onstream between 2014 and 2016.

Bechtel said its selected projects will receive up to $2 million over two years to develop their technologies and the company founded in San Francisco and with main offices in Houston, Texas, will serve as an industrial partner to both teams.

Autonomous construction

“Autonomous Construction - Humans living on the Moon will need structures like habitats and landing pads, which can be made more efficiently if they're constructed autonomously by robots,” explained Bechtel.

“Colorado School of Mines, led by principal investigator Christopher Dreyer, will develop tools and methods for autonomous landing pad construction on the Moon's surface,” it added.

The other award is for “Extracting Resources - Supplies for lunar astronauts” and could be created from what's already on the lunar surface, a process called in-situ resource utilization.

“Missouri S&T, led by principal investigator Leslie Gertsch, will use magnetic and electrostatic technologies to more efficiently separate calcium-containing and aluminum-containing minerals from the Moon's soil, called regolith, to extract materials suitable for construction on the lunar surface,” said Bechtel.

Bechtel said that this was the perfect opportunity to collaborate with the engineering schools.

“Tackling the challenge of building on the Moon will require the know-how of what’s already been done in Earth’s harshest environments, combined with new thinking and approaches,” said Costas.

Cheniere Energy said it had initiated a planned lump sum, turnkey, engineering, procurement and construction contract with US LNG and energy engineering firm Bechtel Inc. for the Corpus Christi LNG plant expansion.

Cheniere Energy has announced the “substantial completion” of Train 6 at the Sabine Pass liquefaction plant in Cameron Parish in Louisiana and formally taking nameplate capacity to 27 million tonnes per annum.

“Commissioning is complete and Cheniere’s engineering, procurement and construction partner, Bechtel Oil, Gas and Chemicals has turned over care, custody and control of Train 6 to Cheniere Energy Partners LP,” said a statement from the Houston, Texas-based company.

“With the achievement of substantial completion, financial results of LNG sales from Train 6 going forward will be reflected in the statement of operations of Cheniere Partners and its applicable affiliates,” added the company.

The work on Cheniere’s Sabine Pass Train 6 started in June 2019 and the peak workforce on the project reached 1,800 workers who installed 12,250 tons of steel, poured 48,500 yards of concrete and laid 2,500,000 feet of cable.

“The accelerated completion of Train 6 once again reflects the world-class standard of execution consistently achieved by the Cheniere and Bechtel teams, and we are proud to have the six-Train vision of Sabine Pass completed safely, ahead of schedule and on budget,” said Jack Fusco, Chairman, President and Chief Executive of Cheniere Partners.

Nine Trains

“With nine total Trains across both the Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi projects, the Cheniere liquefaction platform is the second largest in the world, reliably providing our global customer base with clean, secure and affordable energy,” explained Fusco.

“We look forward to opportunities to build upon our platform with disciplined, brownfield growth at both sites in the future,” stated the CEO.

Brendan Bechtel, Chairman and CEO of Bechtel, said Cheniere plays a vital role in delivering reliable and safe energy to communities around the world.

“For us to be involved in supporting the development of these extraordinary projects is a great source of pride and we’re honored to help bring Cheniere’s vision to reality,” declared the Bechtel Chairman.

Cheniere Partners also owns the Creole Trail Pipeline, which interconnects the Sabine Pass LNG terminal with a number of large interstate pipelines.

Cheniere can now turn its focus to the Texas Corpus Christi plant expansion, known as Stage 3 and comprising the construction of seven mid-scale liquefaction Trains adjacent to the existing facility.

The mid-scale Trains will add nameplate capacity of almost 10 MTPA to the 13.5 MTPA from the three larger existing Corpus Christi Trains, each producing 4.5 MTPA.

Cheniere is aiming to reach a final investment decision on the Texas plant expansion project in 2022.

Cheniere Energy's sixth liquefied natural gas processing Train at the Sabine Pass plant in Louisiana has produced first LNG volumes and full commissioning will take nameplate capacity to 27 million tonnes per annum and actual capacity to 30 MTPA and the US closer to being the World No. 1 LNG exporter.

Sempra Energy, the California company operating the Cameron LNG export plant in Louisiana, has signed a fixed-price contract with US engineer Bechtel to construct its second Gulf Coast plant at Port Arthur in Texas to be backed by a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the largest oil producing company.

Global LNG and natural gas industry executives are gathered in Houston for the three-day Gastech conference and exhibition taking place from September 17-19 at the NRG Center, a convention hall in the Texan city constructed around the former Astrodome.