LNG

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) has signed a second US LNG accord to receive volumes from another Texas export, the Port Arthur liquefaction joint venture in Texas being developed by Sempra Infrastucture, and has followed up on a deal signed earlier in June with the Rio Grande export project in the Port of Brownsville.

Sempra, the US utility whose LNG unit Sempra Infrastructure owns Cameron LNG in Louisiana and other projects in Texas and Mexico, has reported higher earnings in the first quarter as it proposed a five-year capital expenditure plan amounting to $40 billion.

US utility Sempra, whose assets include LNG projects on the US Gulf Coast and Mexico and natural gas and power businesses in California, reported full-year earnings of $2.09 billion compared with $1.25Bln in 2021 and was preparing an imminent final investment decision on the Port Arthur LNG project in Texas.

Sempra Infrastructure, the owner of LNG assets on the US Gulf Coast and Mexico, has signed a preliminary supply accord with the Polish Oil and Gas Company for 3 million tonnes per annum of shipments from Louisiana and Texas.

A heads of agreement (HOA) was signed for a potential Polish deal with the cargoes delivered on a free-on-board bases from Sempra’s Cameron LNG plant at Hackberry in Louisiana, which is being expanded.

“The agreement underscores our commitment to help provide greater energy security to Poland and our global partners through long-term LNG sales,” said Dan Brouillette, President of Sempra Infrastructure, an affiliate of San Diego, California-based utility Sempra.

“Our relationship with PGNiG is core to this commitment, and we are excited to continue working closely with them to advance more reliable, secure and increasingly clean energy solutions,” added Brouillette.

Iwona Waksmundzka-Olejniczak, President of Polish Oil and Gas, said the accord paved the way for negotiations of detailed terms.

Commercial path

“LNG is already one of the cornerstones of our diversified strategy to enhance Polish energy security, as well as to strengthen the commercial potential of the PGNiG Group,” she added.

Sempra stated that the accord may result in the finalization of definitive 20-year LNG sale and purchase agreements (SPAs) for 2 MTPA from the Cameron LNG Phase 2 project expansion in Louisiana and 1 MTPA from the Port Arthur LNG project under development in Texas.

“The HOA also provides PGNiG the opportunity in 2022 to reallocate volumes from the Cameron LNG Phase 2 project to the Port Arthur LNG project,” explained Sempra.

Sempra's Cameron LNG Phase 2 expansion will be in the form of a single LNG Train with a production capacity of around 6.75 MTPA of LNG.

The plant will also be subject to a debottlenecking process to increase the efficiency and output of the existing three liquefaction Trains.

Sempra has now put the Port Arthur project in Texas back on the fast track route to development.

The proposed Port Arthur LNG plant has all its regulatory permits and will be constructed on a 3,000-acre site in Jefferson County in Texas and with an initial 13.5 MTPA of capacity.

Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas), based in Los Angeles and owned by the Louisiana Cameron LNG plant operator, Sempra Energy, has agreed to pay around $1.1 billion in three settlement agreements stemming from the methane leak in 2015 at the SoCalGas Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility.

Sempra Energy has given a strategy report on its LNG export plans and talks with Asian buyers on project offtake after its third-quarter earnings report, while also covering California natural gas regulations and investments and its valuable Oncor utility business in Texas.

Sempra Energy said the Cameron liquefied natural gas export plant at Hackberry in Louisiana was in the final stages of commissioning and production would be starting soon as the California-based utility forecast higher future LNG earnings.