Europe Turns Up Pressure on Venture Global LNG for Not-Ready Farce
Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility recently received Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) authorization to place the final three liquefaction blocks (7-9) into service (see Venture Global Gets FERC OK to Commission 3 Calcasieu Pass Trains). The other trains, 1-6, have been online for 18 months but are not officially in commercial service, even though the facility has now shipped over 200 cargoes! Venture Global claims it’s still working out the kinks. Venture’s contracted customers are frustrated that they aren’t getting any shipments and have sued (see Repsol Joins Shell, BP in Suing Venture Global for Missed LNG). Venture’s customers are turning up the heat even more, asking the EU-US Task Force on energy security to get involved and force Venture Global to begin shipments to its contracted customers.
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The ignominious end of an era. For a full ten years, MDN has covered the story of Canadian company Pieridae Energy and its quest to build the Goldboro LNG export project in Nova Scotia, using Marcellus/Utica molecules to feed it (
U.S. exported 110 cargoes of LNG in October, which is up from September and ties the all-time high number of cargoes exported in March and April this year. In October, nearly 70% of all U.S. cargoes landed in Europe, a huge jump from September. Which European countries received the most U.S. LNG in October? Germany? The U.K.? Nope, not even close. The country receiving the most LNG from the U.S. in October was…
According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, the next “super-cycle” of multi-billion-dollar LNG export terminal construction in North America is now getting underway. In the US, LNG feedgas demand could reach nearly 28 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) by the early 2030s, up from about 13 Bcf/d in 2023. Where will all of the LNG plants come from to handle that kind of volume? S&P provides a really cool map with all current and announced/planned LNG export facilities in North America, detailing how much gas they can produce (in million metric tonnes per year) and the announced start date.
In March, Chesapeake Energy announced a 15-year deal to provide natural gas for LNG exports to Gunvor Singapore Pte (see 
Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility received Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) authorization on October 26 to place the final three liquefaction blocks (7-9) into service. The other trains, 1-6, have been online but not officially in commercial service, even though it has shipped over 200 (!) cargoes, claiming it’s still working out the kinks. Venture’s contracted customers are frustrated that they aren’t getting any shipments and have sued (see 
U.S. Department of Energy reviews for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export permits have lengthened under President Joe Biden’s administration to 11 months or more, from seven weeks, according to government data. The reason? According to one LNG analyst in the know, the DOE is “sitting on decisions because of politics.” Intentional political foot-dragging. The Bidenistas are feeling the heat from two groups: Big Chemical claims exporting more LNG will raise prices domestically for their feedstock. And shrill environmentalist wackos are being loud and obnoxious (what’s new?).
Freeport LNG’s export terminal with three liquefaction “trains” shut down in June 2022 after an explosion and fire (see 
According to analysis from Enverus Intelligence, in the first nine months of 2023, U.S. LNG developers signed 14 long-term sales and purchase agreements totaling 19.65 mtpa (million tonnes per annum). That pace is far slower than in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and set off a mass scramble by Europe to secure natgas supplies anywhere they could. One of the big beneficiaries of that scramble was the U.S. with our LNG exports. This year (so far), things have slowed down with new contracts…considerably.
The radical left has successfully funneled foreign money (from Russia and China) to Big Green groups that hire lawyers to file a blizzard of lawsuits against oil and gas pipeline projects, blocking those projects. That strategy has worked so well that the radical left has turned its attention to a new target (same tactic but new target): LNG export facilities. The first stage in a new war is to “soften the target” with aerial bombing. In this case, the bombings are the lies coming from paid Big Green shills like Bill McKibben. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is expected to approve (soon) Venture Global’s CP2 LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. In a Tuesday conference call with reporters, McKibben (being paid by Big Green) let loose with a volley of lie bombs, calling the project an “enormous carbon and methane bomb” that will further drive climate change. He also called it “an inflation machine” because exporting gas will (goes the lie) raise prices here at home.
In April 2022, MDN told you about Nopetro LNG’s plans to construct and operate as many as three liquefaction trains in Port St. Joe, Florida, that would liquefy up to 3.86 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per year of natural gas for export and delivery to markets in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America (see 
In early August, MDN told you about trouble brewing along the Gulf Coast between Venture Global LNG and its biggest customers: BP, Shell, Edison International (an Italian utility company), Repsol, and GALP Energia. Venture Global is building the Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility in southwestern Louisiana’s Cameron Parish, less than 50 miles south of Lake Charles. We suspect Marcellus/Utica molecules flow to the facility, hence our interest. While Venture Global is still working on completing Calcasieu Pass, it has, so far, already shipped over 200 cargoes of LNG, much of that during the mega-high prices of last year when the Russia/Ukraine war was at its peak. Yet none of those cargoes have gone to the facility’s contracted customers, which have sued Venture Global (see