Bechtel Oil, Gas and Chemicals Inc. has contracted with Cheniere Energy Partners LP unit Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC to provide engineering, procurement and construction of the first two liquefaction trains at the Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, LA. The contract is worth $3.9 billion. Total expected cost for the project before financing costs is estimated at $4.5 billion to $5 billion. Sabine Liquefaction is planning to construct facilities capable of producing 9 million metric tons per year of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the first phase of its project and selling 7 million metric tons per year of the production under long-term agreements. To date it has contracted half of the production with BG Gulf Coast LNG LLC (see Daily GPI, Oct. 27) and said it will make a final investment decision upon contracting the remaining 3.5 million metric tons per year. Construction is expected to begin in 2012 with LNG exports expected to occur as early as 2015, Cheniere said.

Honda‘s U.S. motor company is rolling out a new natural gas-powered model this month, touted by the carmaker as “the cleanest internal-combustion vehicle certified by the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency].” Emissions reductions and cutting the fuel costs in gallon-of-gasoline-equivalent nearly in half in some states are the biggest sales features for the new Civic Natural Gas that Honda said is being aimed at individual retail car buyer markets as well as the wholesale fleet and government sectors. Critics counter that the upfront costs are too high (about $5,650 more than the gasoline-equivalent Civic) and the lack of a comprehensive public fueling network in many states makes spending several thousands dollars for home-fueling equipment a necessity. “Unlike other flex- or dual-fuel vehicles operating primarily on gasoline, the Honda Civic Natural Gas vehicle is run on compressed natural gas [CNG] and operates virtually pollution-free,” Honda said. “In fact, during testing, we found that hydrocarbon emissions were so low [with the use of CNG] we had to develop new techniques to measure them.”

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