FERC on Thursday authorized the construction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export and related facilities proposed by Energy Transfer’s Lake Charles LNG Co. and Trunkline Gas Co. in Louisiana.

In March 2014 the companies sought approval to construct facilities for liquefaction and export adjacent to the existing Lake Charles LNG import terminal in Calcasieu Parish, LA (see Daily GPI, March 26, 2014). Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff issued a favorable environmental impact statement for the project earlier this year (see Daily GPI, Aug. 14). The project backers have been approved for free trade agreement (FTA) and non-FTA exports by the U.S. Department of Energy (see Daily GPI, Aug. 8, 2013).

The export facility is planned to include three liquefaction trains with combined capacity of 16.45 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG. The capacity would enter service in phases with the first train expected to come online during the second quarter of 2019 and the second and third trains entering service during the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020, respectively.

Lake Charles LNG and Trunkline Gas are units of Energy Transfer Equity LP and Energy Transfer Partners LP.

Energy Transfer would own and finance the facility, and BG Group plc is to be responsible for the offtake. BG would also select the engineering, procurement and construction contractor, and manage construction. Upon completion, BG would operate the facility under a long-term agreement with Energy Transfer while Trunkline Gas Co. would provide pipeline transportation services to supply gas to the facility.