Commonwealth LNG, a 9.5 Mt/year project, has received a 20-year authorisation from the US Department of Energy (DOE) to export LNG from its Louisiana facility to countries that do not have free trade agreements (non-FTA countries) with the United States. The company has also obtained a separate 25-year authorisation to export LNG to FTA countries (U.S. DOE statement, 09/01/2026).
Commonwealth LNG, which is owned by Kimmeridge, has already signed long-term LNG offtake agreements with Malaysia’s Petronas, Glencore, and Japan’s JERA. In addition, the company has awarded an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract to France-based Technip Energies in support of the project’s development (KEI, 03/09/2025). To date, Commonwealth has sold approximately 5 Mt/year of its planned liquefaction capacity, leaving part of the total 9.5 Mt/year still to be contracted ahead of the project’s completion (Reuters, 09/01/2026).
As of November 2025, the United States had 9 operational LNG liquefaction export terminals with a combined capacity of around 145 bcm/year (equivalent to 104 Mt/year). In addition, six LNG export projects were under construction, representing a combined capacity of approximately 90 bcm/year: Plaquemines (Phase II), Corpus Christi Stage III, Golden Pass, Rio Grande (Phase I), Port Arthur (Phase I), and Driftwood (Phase I) (Enerdata Global Energy Research).