Update: Venture Global ships first Plaquemines LNG cargo to Germany

Venture Global’s 174,000-cbm newbuild carrier, Venture Bayou, is expected to deliver the shipment to Germany’s Brunsbüttel around January 8, Venture Bayou’s AIS data provided by VesselsValue shows.

Brunsbüttel is home of the DET-operated FSRU-based LNG import facility. The 170,000-cbm FSRU Hoegh Gannet serves the facility under a charter deal with the German government.

Venture Global confirmed the departure of Venture Bayou in a statement issued later on Thursday.

The company said that the LNG shipment will be delivered to Germany’s EnBW, marking over 60 LNG cargoes sent from Venture Global into Germany since 2022.

EnBW previously agreed to buy long-term LNG volumes from the Plaquemines plant.

In June 2022, Venture Global and EnBW signed two 20-year sales and purchase agreements under which Venture Global will supply about 1.5 mtpa from its Plaquemines and CP2 facilities, starting in 2026.

In October of the same year, Venture Global signed a deal to provide more LNG to EnBW, increasing the previously agreed volumes by 0.5 mtpa per year from Plaquemines LNG and the planned CP2 LNG project.

“Exceptional speed”

Last week, Venture Global LNG received approval from the US FERC to export the first commissioning cargo from its Plaquemines LNG plant.

The approval came just a week after Venture Global started producing LNG at the company’s second facility in Port Sulphur.

With this, Plaquemines LNG became the eighth US LNG export facility.

“I am extremely proud of our team whose relentless execution has enabled Venture Global to continue to meet milestones at exceptional speed,” Venture Global CEO Mike Sabel said.

“In just five years, Venture Global has built, produced, and launched exports from two large-scale LNG projects which has never been done before in the history of the industry,” he said.

Venture Global said in its recent IPO statement it is targeting a COD (commercial operations date) for the Plaquemines project in the third quarter of 2026 for Phase 1 and the second quarter of 2027 for Phase 2.

In May 2022, Venture Global took a final investment decision on the first phase of the Plaquemines project with a capacity of 13.3 mtpa and the related pipeline. It also secured $13.2 billion in project financing.

In March last year, the company sanctioned the second phase of the Plaquemines LNG export plant in Louisiana and also secured $7.8 billion in project financing.

The full project, including the second stage, will have a capacity of 20 mtpa coming from 36 modular units, configured in 18 blocks.

Each train has a capacity of 0.626 mtpa.

(Updated with a statement by Venture Global LNG.)