Venture Global Requests FERC Approval to Start Service at Louisiana Calcasieu LNG Plant Amid Customer Disputes
(Reuters) — U U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) company Venture Global LNG asked federal energy regulators for permission to commence service of liquefaction blocks 7-9 at its Calcasieu Pass LNG export plant in Louisiana.
It is unclear if this means the trains are ready for commercial service.
The startup of commercial service at that plant is the subject of several disputes between Venture Global and some of its customers, including units of European energy firms Shell, BP, Edison and Repsol.
Some of Venture Global's customers have filed arbitration cases claiming Venture Global unfairly deprived them of billions of dollars of cargoes that Venture Global has sold while the plant was still in commercialization, or test mode, since March 2022.
In its filing on Tuesday, Venture Global told the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that it produced first LNG in blocks 7A, 7B, 8A and 8B in June 2022 and blocks 9A and 9B in July 2022.
Officials at Venture Global were not immediately available for comment.
Venture Global's request to FERC appears to show the company is preparing to enter the blocks to commercial operations, said Jason Feer, global head of business intelligence at LNG shipping and brokering firm Poten & Partners.
"The big question is does this mean that they will be delivering cargoes to their customers?" Feer asked.
There are 18 modular liquefaction trains configured in nine blocks at Calcasieu. Each block can produce about 1.3 million metric tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG, or 0.2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas.
Analysts have estimated it cost about $4.5 billion to build Calcasieu.
In total, Venture Global has about 70 MTPA of LNG export capacity in operation, construction, or development in Louisiana, including the 10-MTPA Calcasieu (operation), 20-MTPA Plaquemines (construction), 20-MTPA Delta (development) and 20-MTPA CP2 (development).
Venture Global is building the $8.5 billion Plaquemines project, which is on track to produce first LNG in 2024 and started early site work on CP2 in the spring of 2023.
CP2 will be built next to the Calcasieu plant.
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