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TOKYO, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Freeport LNG expects to take thefinal investment decision on its third processing unit at itsliquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Texas near the end of2014, the head of the company told Reuters on Tuesday.
The Houston-based firm signed separate liquefaction tollingcontracts on Monday with Japan's Toshiba Corp and SouthKorea's SK E&S for the plant's third production unit, or train,to freeze natural gas for shipping.
The processing capacity from the first two trains hasalready been contracted to Britain's BP and Japaneseutilities Osaka Gas Co and Chubu Electric Power Co. The final investment decision on the first two trainsis expected in the first quarter of next year.
"We're on the schedule for a final EIS (Environment ImpactStatement) on Dec. 27 ... which will allow us to get approved inJanuary, February and start construction in March," CEO MichaelSmith said on the sidelines of an LNG conference in Tokyo,speaking of the construction plans for the first two trains.
Asian and European companies have been queuing up to importU.S. natural gas, supplies of which are at record highs thanksto horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that haveunlocked vast reserves of the fuel from shale rock formations,pushing U.S. prices far below global levels.
LNG prices in Asia at the same time have risen since theFukushima disaster in March 2011 closed most of Japan's largefleet of nuclear power stations and left the country scramblingfor substitute fuel for power generation.
Cheap U.S. gas has attracted other Japanese companies, aswell as firms in India and Europe, that have agreed to buy LNGfrom other proposed export plants in the United States.
The U.S. Department of Energy granted the Freeport LNGproject, just south of Houston, Texas, conditional authority inMay to export at a rate of up to 1.4 billion cubic feet ofnatural gas a day (Bcf/d) for a period of 20 years.
That would be equivalent to more than 10 million tonnes ofLNG a year, and would cover the project's first two trains, eachwith an annual capacity of 4.4 million tonnes.
Freeport is still waiting for a construction permit for thefirst two trains from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,which the company expects will be granted in the first threemonths of next year.
First exports are targeted for early 2018. The third train -also with a capacity of 4.4 million tonnes a year - is expectedto come online near the end of 2018.
