LNG

Texas LNG, the US export project being constructed in the Port of Brownsville in Texas as a subsidiary of New York-based Glenfarne Energy Transition, has signed a supply accord with the Singapore-based trading unit of global commodities firm Gunvor.

Venture Global LNG, the owner of the Calcasieu Pass export plant in Louisiana and with three more facilities planned, is considering some changes in the fourth on the list of plants being developed on the US Gulf Coast by the Arlington, Virginia-based company.

US LNG exporter Venture Global has received permission from regulators to commission liquefaction blocks five and six at the Calcasieu Pass LNG export plant in Louisiana.

The Calcasieu Pass plant in Cameron Parish in Louisiana, south of the city of Lake Charles, shipped its first cargo at the start of March 2022.

Calcasieu Pass comprises 18 small-scale modular liquefaction Trains each with 0.626 million tonnes per annum of capacity and configured in 9 blocks for total nameplate output of 11.26 MTPA.

Using modular Trains that were built in Italy and shipped to Calcasieu Pass to be installed, Venture Global was able to cut construction costs and to bring forward the start-up schedules.

After the latest FERC authorisation for blocks five and six, the project will be two-thirds complete.

Success

“Given the success of (previous) commissioning operations, Calcasieu Pass respectfully requests authorization to place Blocks 5-6 in service,” said the request from Venture Global which was granted by FERC.

In total, Venture Global has about 70 MTPA of LNG export capacity under construction or development in Louisiana.

The Arlington, Virginia-based company’s three other projects are each expected to have nameplate capacity of around 20 MTPA.

Two of the other plants are called Plaquemines and Delta LNG and are on the banks of the Mississippi River south of New Orleans.

The fourth project, called CP2 LNG, will be built on a 540-acre site in Cameron Parish, adjacent to the existing Calcasieu Pass facility.

Venture Global has host of long-term agreements with customers for its various projects.

The list includes Shell, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Italy's Edison, Portugal's Galp, Spain's Repsol, Polish Oil and Gas Company, Chinese major Sinopec, German utility EnBW and Malysia's Petronas.

ExxonMobil Corp. has signed up with US plants developer Venture Global for two long-term Sales and Purchase Agreements amounting to volumes of 2 million tonnes per annum from Louisiana LNG export plants.

Venture Global, based in Arlington, Virginia said ExxonMobil LNG Asia Pacific (EMLAP), which has an LNG trading licence in Singapore, will receive 1 MTPA from the Plaquemines export plant being developed on the banks of the Mississippi River.

A further 1 MTPA will be lifted for the ExxonMobil unit from the CP2 LNG project being designed and constructed alongside the existing Calcasieu Pass plant in Cameron Parish where several mid-scale Trains are already operating.

“This is the second supply agreement for CP2, which is expected to commence construction in 2023,” said Venture Global.

This refers to a previous deal with New Fortress Energy, headquartered in New York, for 1 MTPA of LNG from the future CP2 plant. NFE is also taking 1 MTPA of LNG from Venture Global’s Plaquemines facility and both deals are for free-on-board cargoes for a period of 20 years.

Venture Global said that both of its new export facilities will replicate the same design seen in operation at Calcasieu Pass, where speed of execution resulted in the production of first LNG only 29 months after the final investment decision.

Fourth plant

The company is also developing a fourth plant on the Mississippi River called Delta LNG and would take its overall output to 60 MTPA.

“Venture Global is deeply honored that ExxonMobil has chosen to collaborate with our company across both of our next projects, Plaquemines and CP2,” said Miichael Sabel, Chief Executive of Venture Global LNG.

“As a global LNG leader, ExxonMobil’s support for Venture Global’s innovation and engineering execution is a defining moment for our combined teams and the wider LNG market,” Sabel declared.

ExxonMobil is developing its own LNG export plant along the Gulf Coast at Texas in partnership with QatarEnergy on the Sabine-Neches Waterway.

However, the Qatar-ExxonMobil project has advanced at a slow pace because of doubts several years ago over market demand issues that have now been resolved and work has gathered pace to construct three liquefaction Trains with around 16 million tonnes per annum of output.

ExxonMobil, based in Irving, Texas, is also a main partner of QatarEnergy in many of its existing Trains at the huge Ras Laffan complex in Qatar in the Arabian Gulf.

Commenting on the SPAs with Venture Global senior Vice President of LNG for the ExxonMobil Upstream Co., Peter Clarke, said LNG has an important role to play in helping lower emissions in the industrial sector.

“We look forward to working with Venture Global as we continue to grow ExxonMobil’s LNG portfolio and progress our plans to reliably deliver natural gas from the US Gulf Coast to global markets,” added Clarke.

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.

Commonwealth LNG, the export venture proposed for Cameron Parish in the US Gulf Coast state of Louisiana, has been informed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of the launch of an environmental impact statement (EIS) process with firm deadlines.

Venture Global, the developer of several LNG export projects in Louisiana, has filed with US regulators to enter the pre-filing process for a plant with 24 million tonnes per annum in Cameron Parish with an affiliated pipeline running from Jasper County in Texas to the facility.

Tellurian Inc., the developer of the Driftwood LNG export plant, said it had extended its accord with Petronet LNG of India on seeking a firm agreement for the purchase of LNG volumes and the Indian company investing in the venture.

The accord involving the supply of 5 million tonnes per annum of LNG was signed in September 2019 with the aim of being finalized by March 31, 2020. 

“The timing has been extended to May 31, 2020 to support Petronet’s consultative review process,” said Tellurian.

Tellurian and Petronet are also negotiating an equity investment in the Driftwood project in Louisiana by the Indian firm of up to $2.5 billion.

The Driftwood plant is proposed for the west bank of the Calcasieu River, south of Lake Charles, and with output of just over 26 MTPA.

“Tellurian was in India this week meeting with Petronet and affiliates to progress negotiations, and we are very supportive of Petronet’s process to ensure their robust project review,” said Tellurian President and Chief Executive Meg Gentle.

“With India’s LNG demand increasing 27 percent year-over-year, and  Prime Minister Narendra Modi planning for $60Bln of investments in natural gas infrastructure, India is perfectly poised to benefit from strategic project agreements such as Petronet’s equity investment in Driftwood,” added Gentle.

Petronet currently operates India’s busiest regasification facility at Dahej, north of Mumbai, with 15 million tonnes per annum of capacity and six storage tanks. The terminal is being expanded to handle 17.5 MTPA.

The company was formed by the Government of India in 1998 specifically to import LNG and will be expanding its interests in the years ahead into LNG fuel distribution.

Shareholders in Petronet, which began operations in 2004, include the other big Indian energy players, Gas Authority of India, Indian Oil Corp., Oil and Natural Gas Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp.