The US Department of Energy has given final approval for another liquefied natural gas export operation, this time in south Texas.
Last week it gave the nod to Dominion Resoiurces at Cove Point in Maryland. And on Tuesday it was for Cheniere to export LNG from its plant in Corpus Christi, Texas.
The approval allows the plant to export by ship the equivalent of 2.1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas for 20 years to countries with which the US does not have a free trade agreement.
Houston-based energy company Cheniere hopes to export LNG from Corpus Christi beginning in 2018. The U.S. Energy Information Administration believes the country could become a net LNG exporter by 2017.
The Corpus Christi project was the first greenfield LNG export terminal to win approval from FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission). The previous approvals have been granted to projects at existing import terminal sites that were repurposed to also export.