After lining up the last of its federal permits, Kimmeridge’s Commonwealth LNG plans to make a final investment decision by October, the company said June 18.
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ended the ongoing environmental battle that had delayed the final order by declaring that the project located near Cameron, Louisiana, was “environmentally acceptable” and “not inconsistent with the public interest.”
Commonwealth LNG is a 9.5 million tonness a year (mtpa) export terminal project. Kimmeridge has already secured the project’s non-free trade agreement export authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Kimmeridge expects to begin production by 2029.
“We are pleased to have received this Final Order from FERC and we thank the regulatory body for their diligent and thorough analysis,” Ben Dell, managing partner of Kimmeridge and Commonwealth’s chairman, said in the company’s announcement.
On June 11, Commonwealth LNG was one of two projects that announced a binding long-term supply agreement with Japanese utility JERA for 1 mtpa. The company has also signed agreements with Glencore and PETRONAS and has a total of 4 mtpa under contract, Kimmeridge said.
The environmental case involved a suit filed by the Sierra Club and several other organizations. In July 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, remanded Commonwealth’s permit back to FERC, seeking more detail about the project’s environmental impact statement (EIS) into the potential effects on air quality of the site.
The same court had vacated the permits of two other projects in the same time frame. The FERC amended Commonwealth’s EIS in the intervening months and moved forward with the permit on June 18.
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