NextDecade drops planned US Galveston Bay LNG terminal

Market: Natural gas
01/02/21

US firm NextDecade has scrapped the planned 16.5mn t/yr Galveston Bay LNG liquefaction facility in Texas after finding the intended site "not suitable for development of an LNG facility".

The firm has informed US energy regulator Ferc of its decision and will withdraw the project from all Ferc pre-filing proceedings, it added.

Galveston Bay is the first large-scale US LNG export facility to be scrapped in recent years, after some facilities were shelved in 2016.

The terminal was intended to start operations in the second quarter of 2027, with its 11mn t/yr first phase comprising two trains and two storage tanks. The second phase would have included a third liquefaction train and two more storage tanks.

Progress on NextDecade's other project, the 27mn t/yr Rio Grande LNG facility, also in Texas, is unaffected by the decision to scrap Galveston Bay, the firm said. The company expects to reach a final investment decision (FID) on Rio Grande this year and to start operations there in 2023. It had originally targeted an FID last year, but delayed this because of Covid-19, after already pushing it back from 2019. But NextDecade said last July that it would abandon development of a sixth liquefaction train at Rio Grande, on the grounds that it can produce 27mn t/yr with just five trains — suggesting that each train will have design capacity of around 5.4mn t/yr.

By Ellie Holbrook

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