Sempra revealed this in its second-quarter results report released on Tuesday.
Construction of the first phase of its Energía Costa Azul LNG export project is about 85 percent complete, the firm said in the report.
“Mechanical completion and first LNG are expected to occur in 2025, with timing of commercial operations under the sales and purchase agreements targeted for spring 2026,” Sempra said.
The company said in a presentation the new schedule is “driven by contractor labor retention and productivity issues.”
According to the presentation, the project’s steel construction is complete and focused on above-ground piping, which is 65 percent complete.
Sempra Infrastructure, a unit of Sempra, and France’s TotalEnergies are adding natural gas liquefaction capabilities to the existing ECA LNG regasification terminal, located north of Ensenada in Baja California.
The partners took FID on the development back in 2020, and ECA LNG Phase 1 includes a single-train liquefaction facility with a nameplate capacity of 3.25 Mtpa of LNG.
Also, TotalEnergies and Mitsui & Co will offtake a combined 2.5 Mtpa of LNG from the facility under 20-year deals.
Sempra initially excepted to launch the LNG terminal in 2024.
In May this year, Sempra said that construction of the first phase of the project was over 80 percent complete, and the facility “remains on track” to start commercial operations in summer 2025.
“Construction is going across all areas of the project. We have about 4,000 people deployed on-site and have over 15 million hours worked with no lost-time incidents,” Justin Bird, CEO of Sempra infrastructure, said during Sempra’s first quarter earnings call.
Besides the first phase, Sempra is also planning to build ECA Phase 2 and the Vista Pacifico LNG terminal in Mexico.
ECA LNG cost climbs
Sempra’s management also provided more details regarding the ECA LNG project and costs during Sempra’s earnings call later on Tuesday.
Asked about the costs, which were previously estimated at about $2.5 billion, Sempra’s CEO Jeffrey Martin said “as a result of the schedule change, we’re expecting that the estimated increase in capital for Sempra’s net share to be about $300 million.”
“We still expect to maintain our targeted levered returns in the mid-teens for the overall integrated project,” he said.
“I’m disappointed with the schedule change at ECA. I will also say, given our ongoing efforts, I am confident that, one, will reach commercial operations in the spring of 2026, and two, will meet our return expectations at ECA,” Sempra Infrastructure’s Bird said during the call.
Providing more details regarding the delay in schedule, Bird said the “critical issue has been that during our peak in the work cycle, given some of the craft labor constraints in Baja, our contractor was unable to retain and secure the necessary labor resources to meet the schedule, and this loss of labor has created a change in schedule.”
“Big picture, I still view this as an opportunity to showcase our ability to work constructively with our partners and contractors to safely deliver a quality project in the spring of 2026 with strong returns over the long-term,” he said.
(Updated to include comments from Sempra’s conference call.)
