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State-owned QatarEnergy owns a 70 percent stake in the Golden Pass project with a capacity of more than 18 mtpa and will offtake 70 percent of the capacity, while US energy firm ExxonMobil has a 30 percent share.
A joint venture of Chiyoda, McDermott, and Zachry won the EPC contract to build the tree Golden Pass trains worth about $10 billion next to the existing LNG import terminal.
However, Zachry Holdings said on May 21 it has filed for bankruptcy, initiating a structured exit from the Golden Pass LNG export project due to “financial challenges” related to the construction of the facility.
Golden Pass told LNG Prime on July 25 that it will ramp up construction activities at the LNG terminal after a bankruptcy court approved a settlement agreement with Zachry.
The JV also said that project is 75 percent complete.
“Getting back to work”
Asked about the Golden Pass project during ExxonMobil’s second-quarter results call on Friday, Woods said the joint venture “is in the process of kind of restaffing and getting started back up again.”
“Obviously, we’re in the very early days of that. So there’s still more work to be done. And of course, the teams are very focused on getting back to work, effectively executing and bringing that project in as quickly as they can and as close to the original schedule as they can,” he said.
In February, Woods said that “train 1 mechanical completion is expected at the end of 2024 with first LNG in the first half of 2025.”
“Right now, our estimate is we’re going to see about a 6-month slippage,” Woods said during the call.
Woods said that the JV had anticipated “kind of first LNG in the middle of next year.”
“We now are looking at probably the back end of 2025 for first LNG,” he said.
“And that’s kind of where the current schedule is. But I would just condition that with the teams are just getting back up and running, and they have a clear mandate to try to bring that in as effectively as they can,” he said.
“And, my expectation is it will do better than we currently think, but we’ve got work to do,” he said.
