Galp Signs LNG Deal with US Venture Global

US developer Venture Global LNG announced May 2 it has signed a 20-year sales and purchase agreement (SPA) to supply 1mn mt/yr to Portugal's Galp.

The LNG will be supplied from Venture's Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility, currently under development in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, USA.

Galp will purchase LNG on a free-on-board basis for the 20-year term starting from the commercial operation date of the 10mn mt/yr Calcasieu Pass project, currently expected in 2022. 

It brings the total number of 20-year sales agreements signed by Venture Global LNG for Calcasieu Pass to 4mn mt/yr: Shell 2mn mt/yr, EDF-owned Italian firm Edison 1mn mt/yr, and now Galp 1mn mt/yr.

Galp noted that its contract is subject to Venture Global LNG taking a final investment decision on that project, and also to satisfaction of customary conditions precedent, including the approval of the relevant competent authorities, including issuance of the Export Authorisations and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) Order.

Venture Global LNG also plans to develop a 20mn mt/yr export project at Plaquemines, Louisiana on an approximately 630-acre site on the Mississippi River, 30 miles south of New Orleans.

Galp is also renegotiating contracts with Nigeria LNG that may otherwise lapse in the 2020s, some extending back to 1999. Galp was the first European company to import a spot cargo from the US Lower 48 in April 2016, sourced from Cheniere's Sabine Pass facility, and has bought several more since - thus demonstrating that it operates in a buyer's market, rather than one where Nigeria LNG calls the shots.