Houston-based Cheniere has plans to build several major LNG terminals in the United States. One of the first ones—the Sabine Pass project now under construction in Louisiana—will be among the world’s largest, capable of regasifying 4 billion cubic feet (113 million cubic meters) per day of natural gas.
To design and build Sabine Pass, Cheniere turned to Bechtel, the company that has led the burgeoning LNG market. Over the past several years, Bechtel has built some of the world’s largest LNG production facilities in Australia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, and Trinidad.
Sabine Pass is being built in two phases. Phase 1 is scheduled to begin operations in the second quarter of 2008, processing up to 2.6 billion cubic feet (74 million cubic meters) of natural gas per day. Phase 2, expected to be operational a year later, will expand the per-day capacity by an additional 1.4 billion cubic feet (40 million cubic meters).
Typically, LNG is heated from cryogenic temperatures of about minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 162 degrees Celsius) using submerged combustion vaporizers fueled by natural gas produced in the process. In Phase 2 of the project, Cheniere is pioneering the use of ambient air vaporizers, which do not require fuel as a source of heat.
As one of the first new LNG terminals being built in the United States in a quarter of a century, Sabine Pass LNG is a landmark for Cheniere and Bechtel, and a harbinger of good things to come for the U.S. energy market.
For more information, see the September 2007 Bechtel Briefs.
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