Venture Global leases land for LNG project
Published 9:24 am Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Venture Global executives announced Tuesday they have leased a 59-acre parcel next to land on which they plan to build an LNG facility in Cameron Parish.
William Wicker, CEO of Venture Global LNG, told the American Press the additional acreage will give the company flexibility during construction and expand the facility’s frontage along the water by about one mile. Venture Global’s proposed plant, Calcasieu Pass, is slated to be built on a 204-acre site near the mouth of the Calcasieu Ship Channel.
Wicker said the additional land will also increase safety margins on the channel.
“It’s always helpful to have more space rather than less,” Wicker said. “The safety margins were good before, but they will be better now because it will allow us to move a little bit to the east and get a little bit farther up on the channel to the north.”
Wicker said adding space to the north and east, puts the company’s proposed facility “a little bit farther away” from channel traffic.
“We thought that was a good thing to do,” he added.
The estimated $4.25 billion Calcasieu Pass plant will be a liquefaction and export facility, consisting of two full-containment storage units and a complex of modular liquefaction units. The facility will also contain 10 “blocks,” each of which will contain one gas pretreatment system and two liquefaction units. All 10 blocks will have the ability to liquefy 1 million metric tons of natural gas each year for export.
The plant will also accommodate ocean-going vessels with an LNG carrying capacity of up to 185,000 cubic meters.
The state Department of Economic Development has said the project will create up to 1,500 construction jobs. When completed, the new facility will create 100 direct jobs with an average salary of $75,000 a year before benefits and 326 indirect jobs.
In September 2014 the company received authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy to export up to 10 million metric tons of LNG annually to Free Trade Agreement countries over a 25-year period.
The company has also applied for DOE’s non-FTA export license, which will allow the company to ship LNG to countries such as Japan, India, Taiwan and the European nations.
Venture Global submitted its pre-filing request last October with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the Calcasieu Pass project. FERC officials accepted Venture Global’s pre-filing request on Oct. 10.
FERC’s pre-filing process begins the commission’s review of an LNG project and its adherence with the National Environmental Policy Act.
Venture Global executives hope to get the plant finished and fully operational by 2019.
