NextDecade Makes Final Investment Decision on Rio Grande LNG (Reuters) — Liquefied natural gas (LNG) firm NextDecade said on Wednesday it has made a positive final investment decision (FID) to construct the first three liquefaction trains (Phase 1) at its Rio Grande LNG export facility.
The Rio Grande LNG export plant has been in development for several years, suffering repeated delays.
The $18.4 billion committed for Phase 1 is the largest greenfield energy project financing in U.S. history and underscores the critical role that LNG and natural gas will continue to play in the global energy transition, NextDecade said in a statement.
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As part of the FID, it has secured about $5.9 billion of financial commitments from Global Infrastructure Partners, GIC, Mubadala Investment Company and TotalEnergies, under a joint venture agreement.
"LNG from this first phase will boost TotalEnergies U.S. LNG export capacity to over 15 MTPA by 2030" said Patrick Pouyann, Chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies.
NextDecade has also committed to invest $283 million in Phase 1, which includes $125 million of pre-FID capital investments. It has also closed $11.6 billion of non-recourse bank credit facilities and a $700 million private placement.
In conjunction with the FID, NextDecade issued a notice to proceed to Bechtel Energy to begin construction of Phase 1 under its lump-sum turnkey engineering, procurement and construction contracts.
The plant has a capacity to produce 27 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG.