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Cheniere’s Sabine Pass facility in Louisiana currently has a capacity of about 30 mtpa following the launch of the sixth train in February 2022, while Cheniere’s three-train Corpus Christi plant in Texas can produce about 15 mtpa of LNG.
According to Cheniere’s second-quarter results report, the company shipped 3,570 LNG cargoes from these two facilities since 2016.
The Sabine Pass facility sent 2,600 cargoes and the Corpus Christi plant sent 970 cargoes.
During the last two years, most of these cargoes landed in Europe, followed by Asia.
Cheniere shipped its 3,000th cargo in September last year, becoming the fastest company to reach this milestone.
The world’s second-largest LNG operator previously set industry records as the fastest to produce and export 1,000 and 2,000 cargoes.
Expansion
Cheniere’s Corpus Christi facility is undergoing expansion to add more than 10 mtpa of capacity.
Corpus Christi Liquefaction said in the June construction report filed with the US FERC that overall project completion for the Stage 3 project is 62.4 percent.
Cheniere confirmed in its quarterly report it expects to achieve first LNG production from the first train at the end of 2024.
Besides this expansion, Cheniere plans to build two more midscale trains at its Corpus Christi LNG plant.
The CCL midscale trains 8 and 9 project would include two trains, nearly identical in design to trains 1-7 and each capable of producing up to 1.64 mtpa of LNG.
The project could have a capacity of about 5 mtpa with debottlenecking.
In addition, in February this year, Cheniere initiated the pre-filing review process with the US FERC for the proposed Sabine Pass Stage 5 expansion project with a capacity of some 20 mtpa.
FIDs
Cheniere just signed a 20-year deal with Portuguese energy firm and LNG player Galp to sell 0.5 mtpa of LNG contingent to FID of the second train of the Sabine Pass liquefaction expansion project.
Asked about offtake agreements and targets for the CCL midscale trains and Sabine Pass expansion during Cheniere’s second-quarter results call on Thursday, Cheniere’s VP and CCO Anatol Feygin said “in terms of quantum of commercial support, we’re right around 10 million tonnes.”
“We’ve got about just under 3 million tonnes with three customers that are tied to the mid-scale expansion. And with Galp, about seven kind of beyond that. So as always, we’re navigating all of the levers, commercial, of course, being one of them to think about what the right way to get to the appropriate project is,” he said.
“And I’ll just add with all the success that the origination team has had in the last year or two, if we wanted to be – we could be 100 percent contracted even with the mid-scale expansion of 8 to 9 and debottlenecking,” executive VP and CFO Zach Davis said.
“That’s how many contracts we have. So we’re in a really good spot where – now with the EA at Corpus for midscale 8 and 9 targeting FID next year once we have the permits and we can make that fully contracted,” Davis said.
Cheniere recently told LNG Prime that its is on track to decide on the two Corpos Christi trains in 2025.
“And with the contract at Galp and everything else that we’ve signed tied to Train 7 or Train 8, we have more than enough to even FID in a couple of years or so, a first phase of a Sabine expansion. So that’s in mind too, as we continue to do value engineering there and work on it with Bechtel,” Davis said.