Venture Global Urges FERC Approve LNG Project

Venture Global LNG said in a January 15 filing to the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) that commission action to approve its 10.8mn metric tons/year (mt/yr) Calcasieu Pass LNG facility in Louisiana by January 22 is “critically important”.

It did not, however, suggest that a delay was in the cards, a week before the approval falls due.

Venture Global filed its application for the facility in September 2015, and received a final environmental impact statement in October 2018. Months earlier, in August 2018, Ferc issued a statement indicating that it anticipated issuing the final order for the project on January 22, 2019.

“Significant” financial commitments to vendors and suppliers have been made, the company says in its filing, largely in the expectation that Ferc would act “on a timely basis” and in accordance with its public pronouncements regarding approval timing.

“The project is unquestionably consistent with the public interest,” Venture Global said in its January 15 request, noting that over the last four years, it has provided all the information requested by Ferc staff and complied with all applicable requirements. “The project has consistently been strongly supported by the State of Louisiana and local interests and has encountered almost no opposition of any kind during the abundant opportunities for public input,” it said.

The export facility, Venture Global said, has secured binding 20-year offtake agreements for 8mn mt/yr of LNG export capacity from Anglo-Dutch major Shell, BP, Edison, Portugal's Galp, Repsol and Poland’s PGNiG. All that is preventing a start to construction, the company says, is Ferc’s authorisation.

“The project is more advanced, commercially and financially, than most other proposed Gulf-coast LNG projects,” Venture Global says. “With very strong community support, almost no opposition, and having satisfied all safety and environmental criteria over a more than four-year long regulatory process, the project now should be approved in accordance with the commission’s announced schedule.”