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ExxonMobil to pursue LNG import terminal in Texas Facility being designed to handle 2 billion cubic feet per day; Qatar deal calls for 2 bcf of natural gas per day over 25 year period Petroleum News
ExxonMobil has begun the permitting process to develop a $600 million liquefied natural gas receiving terminal in Texas, the company said Nov. 20.
With an initial daily processing capacity of 1 billion cubic feet of gas, the terminal is being designed to handle 2 bcf per day. Last month ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum announced an agreement to supply 15.6 million tons per year of LNG, or 2 bcf per day of gas, from Qatar to the United States over a 25 year period.
ExxonMobil started the permitting process in mid-November with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an undertaking the company said would involve “numerous engineering design, safety, environmental and other studies” and should take about 18 months.
The terminal is expected to take about three years to build and provide jobs for about 600 workers during peak construction, ExxonMobil said, adding that the facility is expected to be operational in the 2008-09 timeframe.
ExxonMobil said its receiving terminal would be located about 10 miles south of Port Arthur, on the Sabine Pass, the waterway separating Texas from Louisiana. The company holds options for potential LNG import sites in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Mobile Bay, Ala. It also is evaluating possible sites for an offshore terminal in the Gulf of Mexico. ChevronTexaco also planning terminal Just three days before ExxonMobil announced its plans for an import terminal, ChevronTexaco said it had received government approval to move ahead with what would be the first U.S. offshore LNG receiving terminal, to be located 40 miles offshore Louisiana.
ChevronTexaco’s Port Pelican facility is expected to come on-line in 2007, with processing capacity of 1.6 bcf per day. The company indicated that it would take supplies from its own LNG export terminal in the Atlantic Basin, likely from West Africa or Venezuela. The company recently announced plans to build an LNG facility offshore Baja, Mexico.
ChevronTexaco, which has provided no exact cost estimates for its Port Pelican facility, has said the terminal would be slightly more than the $500 million price tag for some other coastal import facilities being proposed in the United States. The company said it selected an offshore location for security reasons and to be close to Henry Hub and Gulf Coast pipelines that could transport gas to U.S. northeast and western locations.
ExxonMobil’s proposed LNG project at Sabine Pass would be located a few miles upstream from independent terminal developer Cheniere Energy’s proposed 2.6 bcf per day facility on the Louisiana side of the river. Cheniere has said it would seek government approval for the terminal, along with one in Corpus Christi.
Meanwhile, Repsol YPF of Spain said Nov. 24 it signed an agreement with a U.S. unit of Shell to supply 70 bcf of LNG from the Atlantic LNG plant in Trinidad and Tobago to the Dominion Cove Point LNG terminal on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay by December 2005.
Under the contract, Repsol’s largest in the U.S. market, the LNG will be delivered to the Cove Point regasification terminal, where Shell contracts for one-third of the plant’s 750 million cubic feet per day capacity.
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