Cheniere delays Sabine Pass LNG completion date

Cheniere Energy has delayed the completion date for the first liquefaction train at Louisiana's Sabine Pass LNG export terminal by two months until May.

In a monthly update filed on 22 January with the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Cheniere said the "substantial completion" date for train 1 is May, after saying in previous reports that it was March.

Houston-based Cheniere still expects the first test cargo to be exported in late February or March, it told Argus today.

The substantial completion date is the date that contractor Bechtel will turn over the train to Cheniere, but full production and test cargoes will be achieved before that date, the company said.

The substantial completion date for train 2 was delayed to August from June. The substantial completion dates for trains 3 and 4 remained April 2017 and August 2017, respectively, as labor resources will be transitioned to trains 3 and 4 this summer, Cheniere said.

Cheniere on 14 January delayed the planned date of the first export to late February or March because of wiring problems discovered in the cold boxes of the liquefaction trains. It said that full production from train 1 was expected in late February, so the facility could sell supplies into the spot or short-term market from March until late 2016, when its 20-year supply contract with BG begins.

Each of the five trains being built at Sabine Pass will have peak capacity of 5mn t/yr, equivalent to 690mn cf/d (19.5mn m³/d) of gas. The contractually guaranteed start-up date for train 5 is December 2019.

The wiring problems can easily be fixed, but the removing perlite insulation in the cold boxes of trains in 1 and 2 to access the wiring, and then reinstalling the insulation, are expected to take a combined 36 days.

Gas flows to the Sabine Pass liquefaction facility have slowed to an average of 3mn cf/d (85,000m³/d) since 16 January, after averaging 29mn cf/d on 6-15 January. The terminal can now receive up to 1.6 Bcf/d of gas from the Creole Trail pipeline, and its capacity will increase as other trains come on line.