Construction Under Way At Four US Liquefaction Projects

22 Dec 2014: When the US Department of Energy gave Freeport LNG its final blessing on November 14 to send LNG exports from its Texas site to all but a few countries, initial construction had already started on the 13.2 MMt/y plant. By the end of the month, the project had closed $9.64 billion in financing for the first two trains, made a final investment decision and had given its contractors CB&I and Zachry Industrial the green light to begin building. Cameron LNG held a ground breaking ceremony at the end of October on its 13.5 MMt/y facility in Louisiana and CB&I and Chiyoda have been undergoing site preparation since July. Work has also begun at Dominion’s single-train Cove Point plant in Maryland, where Kiewit and IHI Corp are the contractors, despite the fact that the 5.75 MMt/y project has not been given final export approval from DOE. By the end of November, four US LNG export projects – totaling almost 50 MMt/y of capacity – had started construction. This liquefaction capacity is equal to about 6.85 Bcf/d of US market feed gas, a figure that is more than halfway to what many see as a potential red line for DOE in its decision on the cumulative amount of LNG exports it will ultimately allow. Download here