US LNG Expansions, Offtake Deals Belie Market Uncertainty

US LNG exporters are forging ahead with project expansions and offtake agreements despite ongoing market uncertainty stemming from the Trump administration’s chaotic trade policy.

Cheniere Energy said in a Jun. 6 filing it has tweaked the design of its Sabine Pass Stage 5 expansion in Louisiana, teeing up construction on the $15 billion project to start in late 2026.

This week, Venture Global announced a renewed commitment to green-lighting an expansion of its Plaquemines LNG facility by diverting capital away from its ambitious Delta LNG proposal.

And Japan’s largest LNG importer on Wednesday agreed to procure supply from several US terminals under 20-year deals, potentially helping at least two achieve final investment decisions (FID) this year.

While the recent burst of activity is driven in part by the White House’s stated goal of “unleashing” US LNG to global markets, the industry is struggling with some actions being taken by the very same administration — primarily its tariffs on key materials needed to build terminals and gas pipelines.

“I think we can all see just the week by week, day by day news changes on tariff regimes, which requires … a real kind of in-the-moment flexibility and adaptability,” Adam Prestidge, executive vice president of LNG project developer Glenfarne Energy Transition, told this week’s EPC Expo in Houston.

“Nobody in this room can tell you what the tariff regime is going to look like a month from now,” Prestidge added. “But we know that we’re all going to live with it, and we’re all going to be trying to procure a whole bunch of materials to build the project under the tariff regime.”

Mike Alexander, business group president of energy solutions at engineering, procurement and construction giant Fluor, told the conference that macroeconomic uncertainty is “creating challenges with our clients. And I know there are a lot of owners here that are grappling with, ‘Do we move forward or not on the projects?’ And so there are a lot of issues that are in play.”

Navigating the Chaos

Yet, the more established US LNG players appear to be navigating the messy economic and political environment with little trouble.

Cheniere, in an amended application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), now proposes building three trains, each with a nameplate capacity of 6 million tons per year (roughly 0.8 billion cubic feet per day), rather than the previous plan for two 7.5 million ton/yr trains.

Including debottlenecking, the new plan would increase the existing 30 million ton/yr Sabine Pass LNG production capacity by another 20 million tons/yr, similar to the previous design, a spokesperson told Energy Intelligence.

The changes “stand to maximize the project’s brownfield economics, scale and speed to market and reduce potential environmental impacts,” the spokesperson said.

Cheniere also told FERC the revised expansion would impact only 60 acres of wetlands, compared with more than 300 acres in the previous design.

Stage 5 is set to be built in two phases. According to a project timeline filed with FERC, Cheniere expects to receive approval in the third quarter of 2026, with construction to start on the first phase shortly thereafter and operational start-up in 2034.

Deferring Delta

Meanwhile, Venture Global has withdrawn an early-stage FERC application for its massive Delta LNG export project in Louisiana in favor of a similar-sized expansion at its Plaquemines LNG facility nearby.

Pursuing the 24 million ton/yr (3.4 Bcf/d) Delta LNG at this time “would not be the best use of corporate resources,” Venture Global said in a FERC filing. Instead, it will focus its efforts on the proposed 18.6 million ton/yr (2.7 Bcf/d) Plaquemines Expansion Project.

The latter, with a projected in-service date of 2029, “will produce approximately the same quantities of LNG as the proposed Delta LNG project but on a faster schedule,” the company explained.

Venture Global is already building Gulf Coast export LNG facilities at a rapid pace, having just broken ground on its third: the 20 million ton/yr CP2 project adjacent to its initial 10 million ton/yr Calcasieu Pass terminal. It started commercial operation at its Plaquemines LNG terminal in December.

The two-phase Delta LNG proposal — with an estimated price tag of $37 billion — has always been behind those projects in Venture Global’s queue, with no target date for FID or operational start-up.

Courting Asia

In a major potential expansion for Japan’s largest LNG importer, Jera has agreed to buy up to 5.5 million tons/yr of US LNG from up to five separate Gulf Coast projects as the White House pressures Asian countries to procure more US gas.

Included are sales and purchase agreements with NextDecade and Commonwealth LNG, and heads of agreements with Sempra Infrastructure and Cheniere Energy, all for 20-year terms starting around 2030. Two Cheniere projects are being eyed as part of the preliminary agreement: Corpus Christi and Sabine Pass.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the Jera deals represent a large enough commitment to “take project expansions that were in the ‘possible’ category … now they will reach [FID] and go under construction.”

Although the Jera announcement did not specify the project phases its offtake volumes would support, the deal with NextDecade is likely for Train 5 of its Rio Grande development, for which no FID timeline has been specified. NextDecade only recently wrapped up its offtake sales for Train 4 and expects to sanction that expansion in the coming months.

The Commonwealth LNG scheme is targeting FID this year, as is Sempra for its Phase 2 expansion of Port Arthur. The deal with Cheniere’s marketing arm appears to be less project-specific, as up to 1 million tons/yr of volumes are tipped from Corpus Christi and Sabine Pass, which have multiple expansion phases in the works.

While two of Jera’s deals are indeed preliminary, all four are new rather than a repackaging of pre-existing agreements.

“This is another powerful example of the growth of the US LNG export industry over the past decade, which is a boon to our allies around the world who seek to expand trade with the US while supporting their own energy security,” Wright said.

Jera CEO and Chairman Yukio Kani told reporters the agreements “will significantly expand” Jera’s offtake capabilities as Japan seeks to expand its use of gas to generate electricity and serve end-use customers.

And we are not stopping here,” he said, referencing meetings in Alaska last week where Jera and other Asian LNG importers met with state and federal officials about potential offtake and investment in the $44 billion Alaska LNG project.