First LNG Cargo Departs U.S. From Sabine Pass Terminal

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Cheniere Energy Partners LP (Houston) said Feb. 24 that the first export cargo of LNG produced from Train 1 at its Sabine Pass terminal in Cameron Parish, La. was departing. LNG was loaded on the carrier Asia Vision, chartered by Cheniere Marketing LLC for transport to Brazil. “Today we will finish loading the first commissioning cargo of LNG from our Sabine Pass LNG terminal,” said Neal Shear, chairman of the board and interim CEO of Cheniere Partners. “This accomplishment would not have been possible without many years of hard work by our employees, our construction partner, Bechtel, other contractors, and thousands of workers at the Sabine Pass site. We especially want to thank federal, state, and local agencies, elected officials, and community leaders from across Louisiana and the United States for their continued support and contributions during development and construction.”

Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Sabine Pass LNG LP, Cheniere Partners owns 100% of Sabine Pass terminal, located on the Sabine-Neches Waterway less than four miles from the Gulf Coast. The terminal includes existing infrastructure, including five LNG storage tanks with collective capacity of about 16.9 billion cubic foot equivalent, two docks that can accommodate vessels with nominal capacity of up to 266,000 cu meters, and vaporizers with regasification capacity of about 4 Bcfd. Through its wholly owned Cheniere Creole Trail Pipeline LP, Cheniere Partners also owns a 94-mile pipeline that connects the Sabine Pass terminal with a number of large, interstate pipelines.

Cheniere Partners is developing and constructing natural gas liquefaction facilities adjacent to the existing facilities. Cheniere plans to build up to six liquefaction trains, which are in various stages of construction and development. Each train is expected to have nominal production capacity of about 4.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG. Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC, another Cheniere subsidiary, has entered into six third-party LNG sale and purchase agreements that equate to about 19.75 MTPA and commence with the date of the first commercial delivery of Trains 1 through 5.

“This is a momentous day—not just for our domestic industry, but for the global gas industry as a whole,” said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas. “Sabine Pass, the first export facility of its kind in the continental U.S., represents a fast-emerging industry. With a further 10 Bcfd of American LNG already permitted, we will quickly become a major player in the global market.” Riedl added that proven natural gas reserves in the U.S. confirm that LNG exports will bring significant benefits for the domestic economy. As more LNG comes on stream, those benefits will increase exponentially in terms of job creation, investment, and supply contracts across the whole natural gas supply chain.

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