The project company Venture Global LNG has been awarded an authorization by the United States Department of Energy (DoE) to export LNG from the 10 Mt/year (13.5 bcm/year) Calcasieu Pass export project in Cameron Parish, Louisiana (United States) to non-free trade agreement (FTA) countries. As per the terms of the DoE order, the company is entitled to ship up to 1.7 bcf/d (48.1 mcm/d or 17.5 bcm/year) for a 25-year period, which is 30% more than the current planned export capacity at the site.
The project operator Venture Global LNG expects to make the final investment decision (FID) for Calcasieu Pass and to start construction later in 2019, in order to commission the LNG export project in 2022. Upon completion, it 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.
This DOE order comes following the DoE's previous authorizations to export to FTA countries along with the recent approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granting a regulatory permit to Venture Global LNG for the construction and operation of the project. This was the first time that the FERC applied a new approach for consideration of direct greenhouse gas emissions from LNG projects in order to avoid delays in the decision-making process.
In December 2018, the DoE introduced measures to ease and streamline destination reporting requirements for US LNG exporters, as production and exports will be soaring in the next few years. Under the new regulation, LNG export authorization holders are only required to mention the country or countries of LNG deliveries and not the country of end-use. The policy change addresses the reporting of LNG delivery destinations and the types of supply and sales agreements LNG exporters have to file with the DoE. However, export ban on sanctioned countries continues and the exporters still have to report and specify which types of supply and sales contract agreements they have signed.
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