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Cheniere announced the start of LNG production in a statement on Monday.
“The commissioning process continues, and Cheniere expects substantial completion of Train 1 to be achieved at the end of the first quarter of 2025, over six months ahead of the guaranteed completion date,” the company said.
Upon substantial completion, Bechtel will transfer care, custody, and control of the completed train to Cheniere, the company noted.
As of November 30, 2024, overall project completion for CCL Stage 3 was 75.9 percent, which reflects engineering 96.8 percent complete, procurement 97.2 percent complete, subcontract work 87.7 percent complete and construction 39.2 percent complete, according to Cheniere.
Following the completion of all seven trains of CCL Stage 3, the expected total production capacity of the Corpus Christi liquefaction facility will be over 25 mtpa of LNG.
Cheniere’s Corpus Christi plant currently liquefies natural gas at three operational trains, each with a capacity of about 5 mtpa.
In June 2022, Cheniere made the final investment decision on the Corpus Christi Stage 3 expansion project, worth about $8 billion.
Compatriot Bechtel officially started construction on the project in October of the same year.
The project includes building seven midscale trains, each with an expected liquefaction capacity of about 1.49 mtpa.
In addition to this expansion, Cheniere plans to build two more liquefaction trains as part of the third expansion phase at the Corpus Christi plant.
Cheniere aims to take a final investment decision on this project in 2025.
The company also plans to build two new liquefaction trains as part of the Sabine Pass Stage 5 expansion project to add up to 20 mtpa of capacity to the giant 30 mtpa facility.
World’s largest LNG exporter
The start of production at CCL Stage 3 comes just two weeks after Venture Global LNG started producing LNG at its Plaquemines LNG export plant in Louisiana.
Venture Global just sent the first commissioning cargo from its Plaquemines plant to Germany.
With this, Plaquemines LNG became the eighth US LNG export facility, further cementing the US as the world’s largest LNG exporter.
Besides Cheniere’s Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi terminals, the US exports LNG via Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass facility, Sempra Infrastructure’s Cameron LNG terminal, the Freeport LNG facility, the Cove Point LNG facility, and the Elba Island terminal.