U.S. liquefied natural gas producer NextDecade said on Tuesday it had signed an agreement with a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco to supply the superchilled gas from its Rio Grande facility for 20 years.
As part of the deal, the Aramco subsidiary will purchase 1.2 million tonnes per annum of LNG from Train 4 at Rio Grande, its fourth liquefaction facility, subject to a positive final investment decision (FID) on it.
The United States is already the world’s largest exporter of LNG and President Donald Trump has promised to unleash American energy by declaring an energy emergency. Growth in LNG exports is part of that strategy.
The country exported a record more than 9 million metric tons of LNG in March.
NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG export plant has been in development for several years, suffering repeated delays, and its phase 1 is now expected to reach completion by early 2029 at an expected cost of about $18 billion.
The company made an FID to construct the first three liquefaction trains at the project in 2023.
It said achieving a positive FID on Train 4 would be subject to “entering into appropriate commercial arrangements and obtaining adequate financing to construct Train 4 and related infrastructure”.
(Reporting by Tanay Dhumal in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Shilpi Majumdar)