Tellurian Inc., the developer of the Driftwood liquefied natural gas export plant near Lake Charles in Louisiana, increased third-quarter natural gas production and revenues as it continued to progress with the financing of the venture and discussions with counterparties for offtake and equity.
Tellurian produced 19.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas for the quarter to the end of September compared with 11.4 Bcf for the same period of 2022.
The Houston-based company’s natural gas assets included 31,149 net acres and interests in 159 producing wells.
Its main production area of operations is the Haynesville Basin covering northwest Louisiana and East Texas.
Tellurian posted a loss of $12.55 million in the quarter compared with a profit $40.07M in the same quarter of 2022.
For the nine months the losses came to $44.23M versus a profit of $83.17M in the prior-year period.
Revenues
Tellurian generated around $43.2M in revenues from natural gas sales in the third quarter compared with $81.1M in the third quarter of 2022, a change driven by decreased realized natural gas prices partially offset by increased production volumes.
Tellurian reported a net loss of approximately $65.4M, or $0.12 per share (basic and diluted), for the quarter compared with a net loss of about $14.2M, or $0.03 per share (basic and diluted), for the same period of 2022.
As of the end of September, Tellurian said it had approximately $1.3Bln in total assets, including $59.3M of cash and cash equivalents.
“Tellurian’s upstream segment continues to provide growing natural gas production, improving significantly over the third quarter of last year, and we see natural gas prices on the rise through year end,” said President and Chief Executive Octávio Simões.
“We are having a number of discussions with counterparties for both equity partnership and LNG offtake for the Driftwood project and investment in the Driftwood Line 200/300 pipeline,” Simões explained.
Investments
“We have invested over one billion dollars to develop and advance construction of the fully permitted Driftwood project and remain on target to produce first LNG in 2027,” Simões stated.
The Driftwood project involves constructing 20 mid-scale processing Trains, each with 1.38 MTPA of capacity and built as five blocks of four Trains.
The Phase One development would include the first two of these blocks for 11 MTPA of output and two of three planned 235,000 cubic metres storage tanks and the first of three planned loading berths for LNG carriers.
Tellurian also signed an accord in April 2023 to sell the site of the Driftwood plant to institutional investors for $1Bln and to lease back the site comprising 800 acres of land.
Tellurian’s main contractor for the Driftwood construction is the US engineering company Bechtel Energy.
In September 2023, Tellurian signed an agreement with US LNG-equipment supplier Baker Hughes to secure a delivery schedule for eight LM6000PF+ gas turbines, main refrigerant compressors and control units required for Phase One construction.
Tellurian said the agreement supported its aim of having the Driftwood venture achieved initial LNG production in four years’ time.