Cheniere Energy, the largest US liquefied natural gas exporter with the Sabine Pass plant in Louisiana and the Corpus Christi facility in Texas, said its Corpus Christi expansion project signed a feed-gas supply agreement with a Canadian company.
Cheniere said a Corpus Christi Liquefaction LLC unit signed the long-term accord with Tourmaline Oil Marketing Corp., one of Canada’s largest natural gas producers.
Tourmaline has agreed to sell enough feed-gas for the Corpus Christi plant to produce 0.85 million tonnes per annum over 15 years, or a total of 140 million cubic feet per day.
Cheniere said it would pay Tourmaline an LNG-linked price for its gas, based on the Platts Japan-Korea Marker (JKM), after deductions for fixed LNG shipping costs and a fixed liquefaction fee.
The Canadian supplier’s parent company Tourmaline Oil Corp. is acting as guarantor of the gas supply agreement on behalf of the Tourmaline Marketing arm.
Tourmaline has major positions in three of Canada’s largest resources plays in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, the Alberta Deep Basin, the Northeast British Columbia Montney and the Peace River Triassic Oil complex.
Tourmaline said it had secured long-term firm transportation with North American pipeline company TC Energy Corp. on existing pipeline systems to Texas for total tolls of US$0.86 per million British thermal units.
“This will allow Tourmaline’s low-emission natural gas from the company’s Alberta Deep Basin or BC Montney complexes to access Asian LNG market pricing while further diversifying Tourmaline’s sales points for natural gas,” added Calgary, Alberta-based Tourmaline.
Tourmaline has recently acquired more assets in Canada by buying Black Swan Energy and Paramount Resources Ltd, consolidating its position in the Montney Shale basin of northeast British Columbia.
This Integrated Production Marketing (IPM) transaction between Cheniere and Tourmaline will support the development of the Corpus Christi Stage III project.
The Corpus Christi plant currently has nameplate output of 13.5 million tonnes per annum from three Trains, each producing 4.5 MTPA. At the same time the Houston-based company is planning what it calls its Stage III expansion.
This comprises seven mid-scale liquefaction Trains adjacent to the Corpus Christi project, each with an expected nominal production capacity of around 1.4 MTPA of LNG.
The total expected minimum production capacity of the seven midscale Trains is 9.5 MTPA.
Supply breadth
“This latest IPM agreement with Canada’s largest natural gas producer demonstrates the breadth of Cheniere’s natural gas resource supply and the range of our commercial options,” said Jack Fusco, Cheniere’s President and Chief Executive.
