U.S. energy company Glenfarne Group LLC has asked federal energy regulators for five more years until November 2029 to put its proposed Texas LNG export plant in Texas into service, according to a filing made available on Tuesday.
Texas LNG is one of more than three dozen LNG export plants being developed in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, some of which have been under development for many years.
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved construction of Texas LNG in November 2019. That order gave the company five years until November 2024 to construct the facility and place it into service.
Officials at Glenfarne were not immediately available for comment on when the company plans to make a final investment decision (FID) to build the project, or how much it might cost.
On average, it costs about $800-$1,000 per tonne to build an LNG export plant, so the Texas LNG project would likely cost between $3.2 billion and $4 billion.
Glenfarne said in its FERC filing that the project was delayed due to “extenuating circumstances outside of Texas LNG’s control,” including litigation by the Sierra Club environmental group challenging FERC’s orders authorizing the project and other fights over state permits.
Glenfarne wants to build two liquefaction trains at Texas LNG that together would be able turn about 0.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of natural gas into about 4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG.
One billion cubic feet of natural gas is enough to supply about 5 million U.S. homes for a day.
The U.S. is the biggest global LNG exporter and currently has the capacity to produce around 104.6 MTPA of LNG.
In addition to producing LNG for its own power plants, Glenfarne has said it also wants to sell LNG to other companies to help finance its projects.
Glenfarne already has non-binding LNG supply agreements with units of Swiss commodities trader Gunvor and U.S. energy company EQT, the biggest U.S. gas producer, according to its FERC filing.
Glenfarne is also developing the 8.8-MTPA Magnolia LNG export plant in Louisiana.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by David Holmes)