Bechtel Energy turned over care, custody and control of the seventh and final train of the Corpus Christi Liquefaction Stage 3 project in Texas to Cheniere Energy on August 28, marking substantial completion. The project raises Cheniere's total LNG production capacity by more than 20%, to about 56 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), split between the Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi terminals on the Gulf Coast. Liquefaction cools natural gas into a liquid dense enough to ship by tanker overseas.
Seven trains, four years of construction
Cheniere issued full notice to proceed on CCL Stage 3 to Bechtel Energy, its engineering, procurement and construction contractor, in June 2022. The first of the project's seven trains produced its first LNG in December 2024. Chairman, President and CEO Jack Fusco said the project was delivered "safely, on budget and ahead of schedule."
5,000th cargo sails from Sabine Pass
Cheniere also marked the production and export of its 5,000th LNG cargo, loaded onto the Yari LNG carrier, which departed Sabine Pass on August 29 bound for Asia. The company reached the milestone faster than any other LNG producer, in the ten years since its first cargo in 2016. It has now supplied more than 340 million tonnes of LNG to markets worldwide, and its platform represents more than 10% of total global LNG capacity. Fusco called the ten-year timeline "even more extraordinary."
A bigger Gulf Coast platform
Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi now have a combined production capacity of about 56 mtpa in operation, with roughly 5 mtpa of additional capacity still under construction. Cheniere is headquartered in Houston, Texas, with additional offices in London, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, Dubai and Washington, D.C.
