NextDecade has formalized a 20-year sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with ExxonMobil LNG Asia Pacific, an ExxonMobil affiliate, for the supply of LNG from NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG export project in Brownsville, Texas.
Under the agreement, ExxonMobil will purchase 1.0 mtpa of LNG supplied from the first two trains of Rio Grande LNG. The first train at the plant site is expected to start commercial operations as early as 2026.
ExxonMobil joins ENGIE, ENN, Guangdong, and Shell in securing volumes from the first trains at facility, representing more than 60% of the available throughput.
Based on current expected demand for LNG and assuming further LNG contracting and financing, NextDecade anticipates making a positive final investment decision (FID) on up to three trains of the project in the second half of 2022, with FIDs of its remaining trains to follow.
The plant is under construction on a 984-acre site. At full scale, it will be capable of producing 27 million metric tonnes of LNG for export to global markets —enough energy to meet the annual heating requirements of nearly 20 million households, the equivalent of the total number of households in New York and California combined.
In addition to LNG production, Rio Grande LNG offers CO2 emissions reduction of more than 90% via carbon capture and storage—capturing and permanently storing more than 5 million mtpa of CO2 per year, equivalent to removing more than 1 million vehicles from the road annually.
In May 2019, NextDecade signed engineering, procurement, and construction contracts for the first phase of the project with Bechtel. The work scope included three liquefaction trains, two 180000 m3 storage tanks, and two marine berths totaling $9.565 billion.
