The United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has awarded a regulatory permit to the project company Venture Global LNG for the construction and operation of the 10 Mt/year Calcasieu Pass LNG export project in Louisiana (United States). In order to avoid any further delays, the FERC applied a new approach for consideration of direct greenhouse gas emissions from LNG projects. It hopes to use that approach again in the future to avoid delays in the decision-making process for other pending exports terminals.
The project operator Venture Global LNG expects to make the final investment decision (FID) for Calcasieu Pass and to start construction in 2019, in order to commission the LNG export project in 2022. The project will comprise nine liquefaction terminals with a total capacity of 1.2 Mt/year each, along with a 720 MW gas-fired power plant. Several supply and purchase agreement (SPAs) for the project have already been signed, including a 1 Mt/year SPA with Shell in February 2016 and another 20-year SPA with Repsol in September 2018.