Golden Pass LNG, a joint venture of Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil, has signed a deal with Midcoast Energy to secure more natural gas to feed its $10 billion export facility in Texas.
Midcoast Energy, controlled by private equity firm ArcLight Capital Partners, said Tuesday it executed a firm transportation deal and natural gas purchase and sales agreement with Golden Pass LNG.
Midcoast revealed the deal in a statement announcing the launch of its CJ Express pipeline expansion project which will deliver natural gas supplies from East Texas to the Texas Gulf Coast.
In addition to increasing Midcoast’s Clarity pipeline transmission capacity to Gulf Coast demand centers to about 1 Bcf per day, the completed expansion will increase gathering capabilities in the high-growth Shelby Trough area of the Haynesville Shale, the firm said.
The new commercial deals with Golden Pass LNG would become effective after Midcoast completes an extension of the Clarity pipeline in the Beaumont area to a new interconnect with Golden Pass Pipeline that connects to the liquefaction facility, the firm said.
“The construction of new facilities and effective date of long-term commitments will align with Golden Pass LNG’s feedgas needs,” the firm said.
State-owned LNG giant Qatar Petroleum owns a 70 percent stake in the Golden Pass LNG project while US energy firm ExxonMobil has a 30 percent share.
Golden Pass LNG has earlier this year received approval from FERC to boost capacity at its plant under construction by 2.5 mtpa to a total of 18.1 mtpa.
With the approval, each of the three trains will have a capacity of about 6 mtpa of LNG. This equals to 0.79 Bcf per day of natural gas.
The project operator aims to start the first train in 2024 with the second unit expected to follow six-to-eight months after that.