The US company Cheniere Energy has entered into a long-term sales and purchase agreement (SPA) with ENN LNG, a subsidiary of China’s ENN Natural Gas, to supply 1.8 Mt/year of LNG from the Sabine Pass LNG expansion project located on the Louisiana/Texas border in southern United States. The signed agreement is set to last for 20 years. Cheniere said deliveries will start in mid-2026, ramping up to 0.9 Mt/year in 2027. Delivery of the remaining 0.9 Mt/year is subject to Cheniere’s positive final investment decision (FID) with respect to the Sabine Pass Liquefaction Expansion Project. This is the second long-term SPA signed between ENN and Cheniere, after the 13-year one signed by both parties in October 2021 for 0.9 Mt/year of LNG.
This new SPA is the third contract signed for the Sabine Pass expansion, after a deal with Korea Southern Power (KOSPO, 0.4 Mt/year from 2027 through 2046) and Norway’s Equinor (1.75 Mt/year from 2027 through 2042). In February 2023, Cheniere submitted an expansion plan to the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for its Sabine Pass Liquefaction (SPL) Project, which will include up to three large-scale liquefaction trains totalling 19.5 Mt/year of LNG. The SPL Expansion Project will be adjacent to the existing Sabine Pass Liquefaction Project, which came online between 2016 and 2022 and currently has six liquefaction trains totalling a capacity of 27 Mt/year.
As of end-2022, at the national level the US had an LNG liquefaction capacity standing at nearly 80 Mt/year, and a regasification capacity standing at 131.5 Mt/year. The country exported more than 146 bcm (108 Mt) of LNG in 2021.