The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has granted two more authorizations to export domestically sourced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries that are parties to a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States.

Gulf Coast LNG Export LLC was granted permission to export up to the equivalent of 1,022 Bcf per year of gas for a 25-year term from its proposed terminal in Brownsville, TX. “This LNG may be exported to Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Oman, Peru, Republic of Korea and Singapore, and to any nation that the United States subsequently enters into a FTA requiring national treatment for trade in natural gas…” DOE said.

Separately, Cheniere Marketing LLC was granted permission to export up to the equivalent of 767 Bcf per year for a 25-year term from the proposed Corpus Christi Liquefaction Project in Texas. The potential destinations of cargoes would be the same as for the Gulf Coast LNG project.

Cheniere Marketing has not made any long-term gas supply or long-term export agreements, according to the DOE order. It is in talks with Corpus Christi Liquefaction to obtain capacity in its project, the order said.

Corpus Christi Liquefaction plans to build an export/import LNG terminal at the site where it had proposed to erect an import facility in San Patricio County, TX. Cheniere said its project would be “underpinned by the significant resources” in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, which is 60 miles northwest of Corpus Christi. “U.S. Geologic studies commissioned by Cheniere estimate recoverable oil and gas resources in the Eagle Ford Shale at over 180 Tcfe, or 30 billion boe,” the company said (see Daily GPI, June 12).

Gulf Coast LNG is owned by Michael Smith, the founder and CEO of Freeport LNG Development LP. Its proposed Brownsville liquefaction and export terminal would include four trains capable of liquefying up to 2.8 Bcf/d. At the time Gulf Coast LNG filed for the project, it did not demonstrate a business relationship with the Port of Brownsville, DOE said. However, since then Gulf Coast LNG filed a copy of an option agreement it has with the Brownsville Navigation District of Cameron County, TX (see Daily GPI, Jan. 25).

“Gulf Coast states that rather than entering into long-term natural gas supply or export contracts, it contemplates that its business model will be based primarily on liquefaction tolling agreements (LTA), under which individual customers who hold title to natural gas will have the right to deliver that gas to Gulf Coast and then receive LNG,” DOE said. “Gulf Coast states that in the current natural gas market, LTAs fulfill the role previously performed by long-term supply contracts in that they provide stable commercial arrangements between companies involved in natural gas services.”

DOE recently updated the list of applications it has received for authorization to export LNG from the Lower 48 states. The volume represented by FTA applications is 27.58 Bcf/d. The volume represented by non-FTA applications is 21.06 Bcf/d. Eighteen would-be exporters are represented on the list.

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