Commonwealth LNG has a strategy for building its Louisiana export facility that it’s convinced will put it ahead of rival projects along the Gulf Coast.
As S&P Global Platts reports, it’s patterned after an LNG plant in Siberia.
Commonwealth plans to build its six natural gas liquefaction trains and other major components offsite, controller Nick Eusepi, tells S&P Global Platts. The benefit to a modular approach? Lower cost and faster turnaround time on construction.
Commonwealth LNG is planned as an 8.4 million tons per year LNG liquefaction and export facility located on the west bank of the Calcasieu Ship Channel at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico near Cameron. The facility will have six 40,000 M3 modular storage tanks and will be able to accommodate vessels up to 216,000 M3. A 3.0-mile pipeline interconnected to two major pipeline systems will provide the fuel.
Commonwealth LNG didn’t submit its formal application for a federal permit to build the 8.4 million metric ton/year export terminal and an affiliated feed-gas pipeline interconnect in Cameron Parish until August. The project is competing against some others that already have permits and deals lined up with potential off-takers.
But Commonwealth LNG said the amount of time to build its project—around three years, as opposed to the usual four—puts it on track to come online in early 2024, when a potential global LNG supply crunch is anticipated.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is expected to make a decision on Commonwealth LNG by the end of 2020, according to a notice of environmental review. The company is now targeting a final investment decision in early 2021.
“We are coming in later, but we are not finishing much later than everyone else,” Eusepi said. “We still fall right in the middle of that second wave demand cycle. A little late to the game, but not really late to the game.”
