Cheniere Energy ups export capacity with Sabine Pass LNG approval

Cheniere Energy, Sabine Pass LNG facility. Photo: Cheniere Energy.

DofE approves exports, Cheniere obtains new credit to finish Sabine Pass construction

Houston-based Cheniere Energy and its Sabine Pass LNG facility now have a new export permit and $5.8 billion of new credit to forge ahead with the project.

The Energy Department gave the go ahead Friday for Sabine Pass Liquefaction, LLC’s Expansion Project  to export LNG to countries that don’t have a free trade with the United States.

The Sabine Pass LNG Terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana is authorized to export additional volumes of LNG up to the equivalent of 1.38 billion standard cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas for a period of 20 years.

In 2012, Sabine Pass Liquefaction was authorized to export LNG up to the equivalent of 2.2 Bcf/d of natural gas for a period of 20 years.

With this most recent authorization, Sabine Pass Liquefaction is authorized to export LNG up to the equivalent of 3.58 Bcf/d of natural gas for a period of 20 years.

Construction started on trains 1 and 2 (90.8% complete as of May 31) of the Sabine Pass Liquefaction facility in Aug., 2012 and on trains 3 and 4 (67.7% complete as of May 31) in May, 2013. Cheniere expects the first LNG train to produce LNG in late 2015, with the remaining three LNG trains being completed on a 6-9 months staggered basis.

On Monday, Cheniere announced in a release that it had secured approximately $5.8 billion of debt facilities, including $4.6 billion of credit and a $1.2 billion revolving credit. The funds will be used to pay “a portion of the costs of developing, constructing, and placing into service the first five liquefaction trains of the Sabine Pass liquefaction project,” the company said.

Cheniere says it has entered into 6 third-party “LNG SPAs that in the aggregate equate to 19.75 mtpa and commence with the date of first commercial delivery of Trains 1 through 5 as specified in the respective SPAs.”

According to the release, Cheniere owns 100 per cent of the Sabine Pass LNG terminal located on the Sabine Pass deep water shipping channel less than four miles from the Gulf Coast. The Sabine Pass LNG terminal includes existing infrastructure of 5 LNG storage tanks with capacity of approximately 16.9 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe), two docks that can accommodate vessels with nominal capacity of up to 266,000 cubic meters and vaporizers with regasification capacity of approximately 4.0 Bcf/d.