The US Energy Information Administration expects Venture Global LNG’s Calcasieu Pass liquefaction plant in Louisiana to reach full production by the third quarter of this year.
Calcasieu Pass produced its first LNG on January 19 while the 174,000-cbm LNG carrier Yiannis arrived at the export facility in early February. After that, Venture Global won approval from FERC to ship the first commissioning cargo.
The project is the seventh US liquefaction and export facility to begin producing LNG since 2016.
Following completion, the project will have a capacity to produce ten mtpa of LNG or 1.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) from 18 modular units configured in 9 blocks.
The Calcasieu Pass terminal receives its feedgas through Venture Global’s TransCameron pipeline, which has interconnections with the ANR, TETCO, and Bridgeline pipelines.
Nine Calcasieu Pass cargoes
Since November 2021, Venture Global has received FERC approval to commission Blocks 2–6, most recently on March 30, 2022, EIA said in a report on April 29.
Natural gas deliveries to the terminal have increased throughout 2022, averaging approximately 0.7 Bcf/d in April, according to PointLogic.
With only three blocks left to authorize for commissioning, and given the pace at which the terminal has received FERC approvals to commission blocks, Calcasieu Pass could reach its full LNG production capacity of 1.3 Bcf/d baseload (1.6 Bcf/d peak) by the third quarter of this year, EIA said.
Besides the first Calcasieu Pass cargo, which landed in Europe, the plant has shipped eight more cargoes as of April 27, EIA cited data from Bloomberg Finance.
Most of these shipments arrived in Europe due to high prices and as the continent looks to reduce reliance on Russian gas supplies.
Calcasieu Pass has contracts with Shell, BP, Edison, Galp, Repsol, PGNiG, Sinopec’s unit Unipec, and CNOOC.
Venture Global previously said that the facility would start full commercial operations by early 2023.