1-Vessel arrives at Cheniere Texas Corpus Christi LNG export plant
Published by Laura Dean,
Deputy Editor
LNG Industry,
Reuters reports that an LNG vessel, the Maria Energy, arrived at Cheniere Energy Inc’s US$15 billion Corpus Christi LNG export facility in Texas, US, according to Reuters vessel tracking data.
It could be the first vessel to pick up a cargo from Cheniere. This is the second vessel to visit Corpus since Cheniere started producing LNG in mid-November at the plant’s first liquefaction train. According to the comapny, the first vessel, LNG Golar Tundra, did not pick up any LNG, but Cheniere did not say why LNG Golar Tundra was at Corpus.
Corpus Christi will be the third biggest LNG export terminal to enter service in the lower 48 US states. The first being Cheniere’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, which sent out its first cargo in February 2016.
Since then, Sabine has delivered around 500 cargoes to at least 29 countries and regions around the world. The company has said it expects Corpus 1 and the fifth liquefaction train at Sabine Pass to enter commercial service in the first quarter of 2019, followed by Corpus 2 in the second half of 2019 and Corpus 3 in the second half of 2021.
Each of Cheniere’s trains is capable of liquefying about 0.7 billion ft3/d of natural gas. One billion ft3 is enough to fuel about 5 million US homes for a day.
US LNG exports have almost quadrupled from 183.9 billion ft3 in 2016 to 706.4 billion ft3 in 2017, worth about US$3.3 billion, and are on track to rise to over 1000 billion ft3 in 2018, making the US one of the world’s biggest exporters of the super-cooled gas.
The total US LNG export capacity is expected to jump to 5.2 billion ft3/d by the end of 2018, 8.9 billion ft3/d by the end of 2019 and 10.3 billion ft3/d by the end of 2020 from the current 4.5 billion ft3/d. This should make the US the world’s third-biggest LNG exporter by capacity in 2019.
Cheniere is also developing a sixth 0.7 billion ft3/d train at Sabine Pass and seven smaller 0.2 billion ft3/d trains and other opportunities at Corpus. The company has estimated the cost of the first five trains at Sabine, including financing, at between US$17.5 billion and US$18.5 billion.
Read the article online at: https://www.lngindustry.com/lng-shipping/04122018/1-vessel-arrives-at-cheniere-texas-corpus-christi-lng-export-plant/
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