Since the final investment decision (FID) on the project in April 2025, construction has continued to progress on the 16 mtpa project, reaching 19 percent completion by the end of the third quarter.
Including trains 4 and 5, the project has a permitted capacity of 27.6 mtpa.
US natural gas pipeline operator Williams recently purchased stakes in Woodside’s Louisiana LNG project and the Driftwood pipeline.
Williams will hold 10 percent equity in Louisiana HoldCo, with the remaining 90 percent of HoldCo currently owned by Woodside.
HoldCo owns 60 percent equity in Louisiana LNG Infrastructure (InfraCo), with the remainder being owned by US private equity firm Stonepeak.
Minor changes
O’Neill answered a question about FID timing for the Louisiana LNG expansion during Woodside’s capital market day on Wednesday.
“Let me answer the question of what are we going to do before we get to FID for trains four and five,” she said.
“So when we acquired Tellurian, we acquired the design that they had put together, which we like. We like the Chart technology. We like the modularity of the plant that’s been designed,” O’Neill said.
“But there are things that we have learned over 35 years of LNG operations that we would like to incorporate in trains four and five,” she said.
“So we have a team that’s doing a bit of work to assess how do we cost effectively make minor changes to drive performance improvements in those expansion trains. We’ve got a bit of work to do with Bechtel to get the EPC contract flanged up and priced and ready to go,” she said.
More partners
“But importantly, we need to get the sell-downs away,” O’Neill said.
The CEO said that Woodside is “delighted” to have Stonepeak as its infrastructure investor in the first phase of development, and to bring Williams into the venture with their deep expertise in US onshore gas sourcing and pipeline construction, execution, and operational capability.
“We do want to sell down further equity in the HoldCo. And we will want to have a partner or partners lined up for trains four and five before we pull the trigger on FID,” she said.
She said that Woodisde is working with Bechtel to ensure that trains four and five are equally “cost competitive” as the first three trains.
“Now, we don’t have the EPC price yet, so I can’t cite a number. But simplistically, you can understand that once you’ve built the jetty, you’ve built the tanks, you’ve done all the civil works, that just building simply the next two trains and probably one tank is a far more cost-efficient proposition than going from a site that is basically a bare site,” she said.
