Venture Global, a top US liquified natural gas provider, has asked the federal government’s regulators to start commissioning the Calcasieu LNG plant in Louisiana. The company filed the case to the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) this Friday.
Venture Global says in the filing that it has fulfilled the environmental conditions needed to start commissioning; therefore, it requested FERC permission to proceed with the commissioning of the liquefaction systems no later than October 29. However, the actual commercial service date is due in early 2022, as the current services will start in test mode.
Firstly, Venture Global filed for permission to build the project back on September 15 and received the green light from FERC on February 19. The project includes the installation of 18 modular liquefaction trains at Calcasieu to produce about 10 million tons per annum (mtpa) of LNG. Its expected cost is $4,5 billion.
In addition to Calcasieu, the company has about 60 mtpa of LNG export capacity under development in the state. This includes the 20 mtpa Plaquemines section, which could start construction later this year; the 20 mtpa Delta and 20 mtpa CP2 sections.
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Venture Global secured major deal with China
Moreover, such a capacity has gained the company several long-term deals with major companies. As we reported previously, units of China’s Sinopec have agreed to buy LNG from Venture Global.
In fact, according to the Department of Energy’s data, there were three deals. Two of them for a 20-year supply of around 4 million tons of LNG per year, while the third deal was with Unipec, the trading arm of Sinopec, for 1 million tons of LNG per year. Despite the fact that Venture Global has not officially announced the deals yet, they would provide Venture Global enough capital potential to complete the development of the Plaquemines plant.
Furthermore, other companies that have signed LNG deals with Venture Global are units of Royal Dutch Shell, bp, Edison SpA, Galp Energia SGPS, Repsol, and Polish Oil and Gas. All of these companies will get LNG from Calcasieu, while Sinopec would get the LNG from both Calcasieu and Plaquemines.
Finally, for China, the deals with Venture Global were the single largest LNG trade agreements in terms of volumes without an equity stake, a senior Beijing-based gas industry source said. In fact, China has already overtaken Japan as the world’s top LNG buyer. In addition, they would double the LNG volumes that China imports from the United States.
