LNG

March 15 (LNGJ) - Texas LNG, the liquefied natural gas export project to be constructed by the New York-based Glenfarne Group at the fully permitted site at the Port of Brownsville, has received sufficient “expressions of interest from leading project finance banks” to move to the execution phase of project financing. Glenfarne said it had also appointed Latham & Watkins as Borrower’s counsel and Milbank as Lenders’ counsel for the issuance.

   The firm noted that these lenders have been key supporters of Glenfarne, having led over $4 billion of financing to Glenfarne’s businesses over the last 10 years for various energy transition-focused assets. “Texas LNG’s financing consortium will be comprised of the world’s leading institutions that recognize the attributes of the project and Glenfarne’s excellent history of building energy transition infrastructure,” said Brendan Duval, Chief Executive and Founder of Glenfarne Energy Transition. The first LNG exports from Texas LNG are expected to be shipped in 2028.

Texas LNG, the liquefied natural gas export project to be constructed by the New York-based Glenfarne Group, has selected Gulf LNG Tugs of Texas to assist LNG carriers arriving and departing from the fully permitted facility at the Port of Brownsville.

Texas LNG, the liquefied natural gas export plant to be constructed by New York-based Glenfarne Group in the Port of Brownsville, has been issued with two additional mitigation measures by regulators and said it was still on track to make a final investment decision in 2023.

Glenfarne Group, the US developer and operator of global energy and infrastructure assets and of the Texas LNG Brownsville and Magnolia LNG projects in Texas and Louisiana, has overhauled the business and formed Glenfarne Energy Transition (GET) for its energy assets while giving estimates for LNG final investment decisions.

Glenfarne Group, the privately-held energy and infrastructure development and management firm based in New York, has signed a contract for its Texas LNG Brownsville project to be built by a joint venture comprising Technip Energies and South Korea’s Samsung Engineering.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) has issued two long-term orders authorizing additional liquefied natural gas exports from two projects of the US Gulf Coast, the QatarEnergy-backed Golden Pass LNG plant in Texas and the Magnolia LNG venture in Louisiana owned by the Glenfarne Group.

Golden Pass, an existing import terminal currently being transformed into an export facility, is a joint venture between QatarEnergy and ExxonMobil Corp. and the first liquefaction Train is scheduled to come on stream by 2024.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission formally approved the transformation of Golden Pass, located on the Sabine-Neches Waterway in Texas, back in December 2016.

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.

US regulators had previously approved construction of the Magnolia LNG plant proposed for a 115-acre site near the Calcasieu Ship Channel with 8.8 MTPA of output from four Trains.

Investment buyer

The Magnolia development had previously been owned by an Australian-listed company LNG Ltd that ceased trading amid financial difficulties.

Glenfarne, a New York-based fund specialising in energy infrastructure investment, then took over the project.

The DoE orders have authorized additional 0.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas flows to the plants. “The orders allow Golden Pass LNG to export the equivalent of an additional 0.35 Bcf/d and Magnolia LNG to export an additional 0.15 Bcf/d of natural gas as LNG to any country not prohibited by US law or policy,” said the statement.

The DoE had previously issued long-term non-free trade agreement export orders for the majority of the projects’ capacities, with Magnolia LNG’s authorization for 1.08 billion cubic feet per day in 2016 and an authorization for 2.21 billion cubic feet per day issued to Golden Pass LNG in 2017.

The statement explained that the two orders align the respective export authorizations to additional capacity that the FERC had approved for the projects based on optimized project designs.

“The United States is the largest global producer of oil and natural gas and a net exporter of energy. US fuel supplies, including LNG, continue to play a key role in global energy security, particularly due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” said the DoE.

It noted that US LNG exports had recently reached new highs of about 12 billion cubic feet per day and are expected to grow to more than 13 Bcf per day by the end of this year as additional export capacity comes online from seven large-scale plants now operating. 

Glenfarne, a New York-based fund specialising in energy infrastructure investment, is keeping the regulatory pot boiling on the Magnolia LNG export plant in Louisiana by filing a monthly activities report for through October 2021 after the completion deadline was extended to 2026.

Annova LNG, the medium-scale US project planned for the south bank of the Brownsville Ship Channel in Texas, will not now be proceeding following a decision by investors to cancel the venture, while the Chief Executive has already left the project to join Canadian pipeline company TC Energy.

NextDecade Corp., developer of the Rio Grande liquefied natural LNG export project in Texas, has decided not to proceed with another venture called Galveston Bay LNG because part of the project area is under federal law.

Glenfarne Group, the owner of the Magnolia LNG export project in Louisiana, has been granted five more years by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to complete the Louisiana plant and associated facilities.