FERC granted Venture Global Plaquemines LNG’s request on December 20 to “export by LNG marine vessels the volumes of produced liquefied natural gas related to the commissioning activities.”
The regulator approved the request on the same day when Venture Global sought approval to “load Plaquemines LNG’s first LNG export commissioning cargo on or after December 21, 2024.”
The approval comes just a week after Venture Global started producing LNG at the company’s second facility, Plaquemines LNG, in Port Sulphur.
With this, Plaquemines LNG becomes the eighth US LNG export facility.
“Achieving this milestone for a 20 mtpa nameplate capacity project 30 months from its final investment decision (FID) makes Plaquemines LNG one of the two fastest greenfield projects to reach first production, along with Venture Global’s first facility Calcasieu Pass,” the company claims.
Once fully operational, Plaquemines LNG will be among the largest facilities in the world.
Venture Global took a final investment decision in May 2022 on the first phase of the Plaquemines project with a capacity of 13.3 mtpa and the related pipeline. It also secured $13.2 billion in project financing.
In March last year, the company sanctioned the second phase of the Plaquemines LNG export plant in Louisiana and also secured $7.8 billion in project financing.
The full project, including the second stage, will have a capacity of 20 mtpa coming from 36 modular units, configured in 18 blocks.
Each train has a capacity of 0.626 mtpa.
Because of Venture Global’s unique configuration and construction approach, Plaquemines will produce and export LNG while construction and commissioning continues for the remainder of the project’s 36 trains and associated facilities, the company said.
Commissioning
Venture Global previously said it expects to start LNG production by the end of this year, while commissioning of the facility is expected to last about two years.
Last month, Venture Global’s newbuild carrier, Venture Bayou, arrived at the Plaquemines LNG export plant.
The 174,000-cbm LNG carrier was still located on Monday morning at the LNG plant along the Mississippi River, according to its AIS data provided by VesselsValue.
Prior to this vessel, the Plaquemines LNG facility received a cool-down cargo in August onboard the 2020-built 174,000-cbm, Qogir.
In August, Venture Global secured approval to commission the liquefaction train system block 1 with nitrogen.
To date, the FERC has granted the commissioning of six liquefaction train system blocks.
The company’s first LNG plant, Calcasieu Pass, produced its first LNG on January 19, 2022, moving from FID to LNG production in 29 months, and the first commissioning cargo left the facility on March 1, 2022.
However, the facility is still in commissioning mode, and Venture Global expects to launch commercial operations in 2025.
Energy giants Shell and BP and other firms are in a dispute with Venture Global over the launch of commercial operations at the facility, and they previously launched arbitration proceedings against Venture Global.
