TotalEnergies, TES, and Japanese firms Osaka Gas, Toho Gas, and Itochu have launched front-end engineering design (FEED) activities for the planned Live Oak large-scale facility to produce electric natural gas (e-NG), also known as e-methane, in Nebraska, United States.
Last year, TotalEnergies and TES signed a joint development and operating agreement, granting the Japanese companies a combined 33.3 percent stake in the Live Oak project, with TotalEnergies and TES each maintaining a 33.35 percent stake.
According to a joint statement on Friday, the FEED work will be conducted by US-based KBR and Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas.
Both companies were selected by the consortium through a competitive process and will carry out parallel FEED studies, after which one of the two FEED concepts will be selected for execution.
The project will continue to advance with the aim of completing FEED and starting execution in 2027, with potential beginning of commercial operations by 2030, the statement said.
Located in Norfolk, Nebraska, the project is expected to produce e-NG, a synthetic gas made by combining hydrogen produced through electrolysis with CO₂ captured from bioethanol plants through methanation.
Chemically identical to conventional natural gas, e-NG can be seamlessly integrated into existing LNG infrastructure – including liquefaction, transportation, regasification, and distribution – and used without any modifications to end-user equipment, the statement noted.
Once in operation, Live Oak aims to supply low-carbon gas to customers in Japan, leveraging existing US natural gas and LNG infrastructure for exports.
Osaka Gas and Toho Gas will serve as the project’s primary offtakers.
The partners are targeting a capacity of approximately 250 MW of electrolysis and 75 ktpa of methanation.