NextDecade and Project Canary have joined forces on a pilot project for monitoring, reporting and independent third-party measurement and certification of greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to be sold from NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG export facility in the Port of Brownsville, Texas.
Project Canary will deploy its TrustWell™ certification process to confirm each element of the natural gas value chain – from the wellhead to the ship at Rio Grande LNG – has achieved low emissions targets and utilized high standards of environmental performance and social responsibility. Project Canary obtained the TrustWell™ process as part of itsfall 2020 merger with Independent Energy Standards, the developer of the system.
The NextDecade/Project Canary will enable the development of a responsibly sourced natural gas supply chain from leading producers in the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale and independent, third-party certification of the GHG intensity of LNG.
“Project Canary’s independent measurement and certification platform will provide transparency and give confidence to our customers who are increasingly focused on securing low greenhouse-gas-intensive LNG,” said Matt Schatzman, NextDecade’s chairman and chief executive. “Reliable, competitively priced LNG and responsible environmental stewardship are not mutually exclusive, and we are pleased to work with Project Canary to establish a new and higher standard for the supply of low-GHG LNG to markets around the world.”
Earlier this month, NextDecade and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America signed an engineering services agreement for the design, license and performance guarantee of the KM CDR Process™, a post-combustion carbon capture technology to be applied at Rio Grande LNG.
Last month, NextDecade announced its wholly owned subsidiary, NEXT Carbon Solutions, is developing one of the largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in North America at Rio Grande LNG. NEXT Carbon Solutions’ CCS project at Rio Grande LNG is expected to enable the capture and permanent geologic storage of more than 5 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Combining responsibly sourced gas with the anticipated CO2 emissions reduction associated with NEXT Carbon Solutions’ CCS project is expected to enable Rio Grande LNG to produce the lowest lifecycle GHG LNG on a free-on-board basis and to be the greenest LNG project in the world.
Last October, French utility Engie delayed its decision to sign a 20-year, $7-billion supply contract with NextDecade’s 27-mtpa Rio Grande LNG project following emission concerns from the French government.
In late 2019, NextDecade received $50 million from Mubadala Investment Co., the Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investor, in return for shares of NextDecade’s common stock in a private placement. The deal strengthened NextDecade’s financial position during the development phase of the Rio Grande LNG project.
NextDecade has delayed its final investment decision (FID) on the Rio Grande LNG project twice in the past three years. Originally planned for a late 2019 decision, the company pushed out the planned green light to the Q1 2020 before ultimately pushing the decision into this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on global LNG markets.
