Cheniere to expand new LNG capacity on US Gulf

Cheniere Energy has announced two significant LNG project developments that, if completed, are projected to add up to approximately 19 million tpy of incremental LNG production capacity and would bring Cheniere's aggregate nominal LNG production capacity to near 60 million tpy by 2025.

Cheniere is developing approximately 9 million tpy of incremental LNG production capacity through the addition of two liquefaction trains adjacent to the existing site of the Corpus Christi liquefaction project (CCL project).

The expected nominal LNG production capacity of each of these liquefaction trains is approximately 4.5 million tpy, which would increase the expected capacity at the CCL project to approximately 22.5 million tpy.

Cheniere initiated the regulatory process in June 2015 by filing the National Environmental Policy Act pre-filing request with the FERC and the FTA and non-FTA approval requests with the DOE. Regulatory approvals would be expected in 2017.  

In addition, Cheniere has agreed in principle to partner with Parallax Enterprises, to develop up to 10 million tpy of LNG production capacity through Parallax's two mid-scale projects, Live Oak LNG (Live Oak) and Louisiana LNG (LLNG).

Live Oak is located on the Calcasieu Ship Channel, in southwestern Louisiana, and LLNG is located on the Mississippi River, approximately 40 miles from New Orleans. Both projects are expected to have two liquefaction trains designed for an LNG production capacity of 2.5 million tpy each, utilizing liquefaction process technology and modular equipment developed by Chart Industries. The facilities are being engineered by Bechtel.

"Our latest LNG development projects include two additional liquefaction trains adjacent to our Corpus Christi liquefaction site and four mid-scale liquefaction trains to be developed at two sites located in Louisiana. This next phase of growth would bring our expected aggregate nominal LNG production capacity to approximately 60 mtpa by 2025," said Charif Souki, Cheniere's CEO. 

"We expect that these liquefaction trains could be funded from internally generated cash flows, which would allow us to continue to be one of the lowest cost suppliers of LNG in the market and give us more flexibility in terms of contracting and selling volumes on a more tailored basis to meet the individual needs of global LNG buyers," he continued.

"We continue to market long-term contracts for Train 3 at Corpus Christi and Train 6 at Sabine Pass, and plan to finalize the sale of approximately 3 million tpy of capacity under 20-year agreements before we make a positive final investment decision (FID) on each train, reaching a total of approximately 32 million tpy of LNG under long-term third-party contracts out of a total of 40.5 million tpy by 2020. We think we can continue to grow this platform at 10% per year until 2025, and reach approximately 60 million tpy of expected total nominal LNG production capacity with our new projects while remaining a low-cost global LNG supplier."

Cheniere anticipates both project developments could be under construction as early as 2017, subject to receiving all required regulatory approvals and reaching FID.

The projects would be targeted to begin production as early as 2021, with all of the 19 million tpy of new capacity targeted to be in production by 2025.