Cheniere Energy Inc. said Tuesday it had made a positive FID (final investment decision) to add two “midscale” trains to the Corpus Christi LNG facility in South Texas.
The Houston, Texas-based LNG producer “issued full notice to proceed to Bechtel Energy, Inc. for construction of CCL Midscale Trains 8 & 9”, a company statement said.
The two trains will raise the terminal’s capacity by over 3 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa). In July 2023 the United States Department of Energy (DOE) granted CCL Midscale Trains 8 & 9 authorization to export to countries with a free trade agreement (FTA) with the U.S.
The DOE has yet to grant the project a non-FTA permit. However, the agency has resumed issuing final orders on pending decisions paused by the previous administration last year, in support of President Donald Trump’s “unleashing American energy” agenda.
Trains 8 and 9 will rise next to CCL Stage 3, which is also under construction.
Stage 3 will have seven midscale trains with a total capacity of more than 10 MMtpa, raising the terminal’s capacity to over 25 MMtpa. Midscale trains 1-7 are permitted to export the equivalent of 582.14 billion cubic feet a year of natural gas to both FTA and non-FTA countries on a non-additive basis.
In March Cheniere said train 1 of Stage 3 had been commissioned. Train 1 had already started production December 2024 and dispatched its first cargo February 2025, the company said earlier in a quarterly report.
Cheniere said Tuesday Stage 3’s train 2 had begun production earlier this month.
Currently Corpus Christi LNG has a production capacity of around 16.5 MMtpa from four trains. It has dispatched about 1,140 cargoes since 2018, Cheniere says on its website.
In Tuesday’s statement the company said, “In addition, Cheniere is developing further brownfield liquefaction capacity expansions at both the Corpus Christi and Sabine Pass terminals. The Company expects these expansions to be executed in a phased approach, starting with initial single-train expansions at each site which, if completed, would grow Cheniere’s LNG platform to up to approximately 75 mtpa [million metric tons per annum] of capacity by the early 2030s”.
Cheniere said the FID for trains 8 and 9, along with the company’s existing share buyback package, keeps it on track to meet its plan of deploying approximately $20 billion of capital by 2026 and reaching around $20 per share of run-rate distributable cash flow (DCF).
“Cheniere is increasing and extending its committed capital allocation targets, starting with a planned over 10 percent increase of its third quarter 2025 dividend from $2.00 to $2.22 per share annualized”, it added.
“Going forward, Cheniere expects to generate over $25 billion of available cash through 2030 as of this quarter, which the Company plans to allocate across disciplined accretive growth and shareholder returns in the form of buybacks and dividends, as well as balance sheet management.
“With this enhanced plan, Cheniere now expects to reach over $25 per share of run-rate DCF”.
To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com
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