Houston-based NextDecade Corporation says it expects to make a decision the first quarter of this year whether to build the first phase of its planned Rio Grande LNG facility at the Port of Brownsville.
The company said it anticipates a “positive Financial Investment Decision,” which means construction would proceed on the plant’s first three trains, or liquefaction units, of the plant/export terminal on 984 acres north of the Brownsville Ship Channel.
NextDecade on Dec. 27 announced an adjustment to a sale-and-purchase agreement signed earlier this year with a Singapore-headquartered company for NextDecade to supply LNG from its Brownsville plant.
Under the new terms, Rio Grande LNG would sell 2 million tonnes of LNG per year to ENN LNG (Singapore) Pte Ltd, up from 1.5 million tonnes per year, for a period of 20 years. A tonne is a metric measurement equaling 1,000 kilograms.
Earlier last month, NextDecade announced a sale-and-purchase agreement with Portugal-based energy company Galp S.A. for 1 million tonnes per year of LNG from Brownsville over 20 years.
In July, NextDecade announced another 20-year sales-and-purchase agreement for the same volume of LNG, with ExxonMobil LNG Asia Pacific.
NextDecade announced in September that it planned to sell $85 million in common stock and use the proceeds “to continue development activity for its anticipated positive final investment decision.”
Rio Grande LNG would receive its supply of natural gas from the Agua Dulce Hub in Nueces County via the yet-to-be built Rio Bravo Pipeline.
NextDecade and Enbridge Inc., headquartered in Calgary, Canada, in February 2020 signed an agreement committing Enbridge to purchase the Rio Bravo Pipeline Company from NextDecade for $25 million and assume responsibility for developing, financing and building the pipeline.
The deal called for Enbridge to pay $15 million at closing, with the balance to be paid upon NextDecade coming to a positive financial investment decision.
The pipeline would be capable of transporting up to 4.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Liquefying natural gas involves super-chilling it, which shrinks the gas to a manageable volume for loading onto specialized LNG vessels for export.
Fully built out, Rio Grande LNG would feature five trains capable of producing a total of 27 million tonnes of LNG per year. NextDecade said it expects the facility’s first train to be commercially operational as early as 2026.
