Venture Global Plaquemines LNG LLC and Venture Global Gator Express LLC have made their formal application to FERC for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal and related pipeline project in Louisiana.

The 20 million tonne per annum (mtpa) Plaquemines LNG facility would be constructed on a 632-acre site in Plaquemines Parish at river mile marker 55 on the Mississippi River, about 30 miles south of New Orleans. The export facility would include more than 7,000 feet of Mississippi River frontage with three LNG loading docks.

Bob Pender and Mike Sabel, co-CEOs of parent company Venture Global LNG Inc. said, “With the support of the Plaquemines Port and the Plaquemines Council, this large, attractive site on the Mississippi River is convenient and safely accessible to our international LNG customers. Further, we can access plentiful sources of U.S. natural gas through nearby, liquid interconnection points and skip the high-cost, long-distance lateral pipelines that many projects are burdened with.”

Last December Venture Global said it would proceed with the $8.5 billion project, its second in Louisiana. The company is also developing the $4.5 billion Calcasieu Pass project, which was announced in Cameron Parish in December 2014 and is under development.

The Plaquemines LNG project is planned to feature 20 liquefaction blocks developed in two phases, with each block having a nameplate capacity of 1 million mtpa. It will also contain four 200,000-cubic-meter LNG above-ground storage tanks with cryogenic pipeline connections to the liquefaction plant and berthing docks.

The facility is expected to include up to three marine loading berths capable of receiving oceangoing LNG carriers up to 185,000 cubic meters in capacity. It will also include a utility dock on the Mississippi River to handle waterborne deliveries of equipment and material during both construction and project operations. A combined-cycle gas turbine power plant with generating capacity of 720 MW also will be developed, another similar plant is to be added in a second phase.

To deliver natural gas to the project site, Venture Global is proposing to construct two 42-inch diameter pipelines connecting to existing interstate natural gas pipelines.

The proposed Gator Express facilities would be constructed in two phases and would include for the first phase, a 16- mile, 42-inch diameter pipeline and appurtenant facilities, to deliver gas to the LNG project from new interconnections with Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC and Texas Eastern Transmission LP located offshore, southwest of the terminal site. In the second phase, a looped section of 11-mile, 42-inch diameter pipeline and appurtenant facilities would deliver additional supplies to the terminal from the interconnection with Texas Eastern Transmission.

Each phase would be designed to deliver about 1.97 million Dth/d.