NextDecade Tops 4.5 Million Tons in Annual LNG Offtake Commitments for Rio Grande Train
ConocoPhillips is committed to buying and transporting 20 years of liquified natural gas (LNG) supply from a planned liquefaction and export terminal on the Texas Gulf Coast.
NextDecade Corp. announced the 20-year LNG sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with ConocoPhillips for offtake from the Rio Grande LNG Train 5. NextDecade is close to making its final investment decision on Rio Grande LNG Train 5.
ConocoPhillips is committed to acquiring 1 million metric tons of LNG supply per year under the long-term SPA. So far, NextDecade has wrapped up about 4.5 million metric tons of off-take commitment for Rio Grande LNG Train 5.
“ConocoPhillips has a long history of leadership in LNG and is an outstanding addition to our strong portfolio of LNG buyers from Rio Grande LNG Train 5,” said Matt Schatzman, NextDecade chairman and CEO, in a statement. “We have now completed commercialization of Train 5, and we are focused on finishing the financing and achieving a positive FID.”
The U.S. is now the world’s largest exporter of LNG, which is natural gas chilled cold enough to liquify and make it compressed and stable enough for long-distance shipping. The historic production out of U.S. shale plays is making the LNG export capacity possible.
NextDecade hopes to make its final investment decision on Rio Grande Train 5 by the end of this year. The company is constructing the first three LNG trains at Brownsville, Texas, while Train 4 also is in the final investment decision stage.
Many off-takers of U.S. LNG include countries and overseas companies which are limited in energy-dense resources, and want to cut emissions compared to coal-fired power generation. Natural gas emits lower greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide than coal or fuel oil.
NextDecade hopes to build as many as 10 liquefaction trains at Rio Grande LNG.
One million metric tons of LNG is the energy equivalent of close to 32 MW of continuous power, according to some experts. The biggest U.S. LNG terminal is Sabine Pass, owned by Cheniere Energy, which has a production capacity of 30 million tons per year, close to the equivalent of a nuclear reactor power plant.
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EnergyTech Staff
Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.
Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
He can be reached at [email protected].
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