US regulators have approved Commonwealth LNG’s request for more time to bring its liquefied natural gas export terminal into service.

Commonwealth on 2 October submitted a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking a four-year extension for the construction of its 9.5 million tonnes per annum Louisiana facility. The original deadline was set for November 2027.

The developer had cited reasons beyond its control as the basis for its request, including a legal challenge to its FERC authorisation and a delay in licensing from the US Department of Energy (DoE).

FERC announced on Tuesday that it had approved the request, granting Kimmeridge-operated Commonwealth until 31 December 2031 to construct the facility and bring it into service.

A public notice of the request did not receive any “interventions, comments, and protests”, FERC said in a letter posted on its eLibrary detailing its decision.

The extension’s green light comes days after a Louisiana judge vacated a state permit for the export project after a coalition of environmental groups challenged whether the authorisation should have been issued in the first place.

The groups had argued that Louisiana’s Department of Energy and Natural Resources, recently rebranded as the Louisiana Department of Conservation and Energy, did not properly examine the project’s potential impact on the Louisiana coastline ecosystem, as well as its possible impacts on climate change and “storm severity”, court records showed.

The ruling judge sided with the environmental groups, saying state agencies “failed to consider the secondary and cumulative impacts” of Commonwealth LNG, and remanded the coastal use permit back to the state for review.

Commonwealth has said it will pursue “all available legal options” for a remedy.

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