QatarEnergy and ExxonMobil will independently market their respective shares of LNG from their joint venture expansion of the Golden Pass LNG Terminal in Sabine Pass, Texas, leveraging efficiencies across separate global LNG portfolios in the ramp-up to the facility’s 2024 startup.
ExxonMobil affiliate ExxonMobil LNG Asia Pacific now has exclusive rights to market 30% of Golden Pass LNG volumes while QatarEnergy Trading markets the remaining 70%, the two companies announced.
In 2016, ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy had established the Ocean LNG joint venture to offtake and market all LNG production from Golden Pass for export. That joint venture, though, has now ceased operations and is being wound down as the partners go separate ways on the sales side.
The $10-billion project to expand the Golden Pass LNG import terminal into a facility capable of also producing for export 16 mtpa of US-branded LNG entered the construction phase in 2019.
In reporting its Q2 results in August, US independent Chesapeake Energy Corp. said it had entered into a term gas supply agreement with Golden Pass to deliver 300 MMcf/D of gas from its Haynesville shale assets to the terminal.
Peter Clarke, head of ExxonMobil’s LNG business, said in a press statement that by marketing Golden Pass production independently, his company “will generate increased value and flexibility across ExxonMobil’s growing LNG portfolio.”
ExxonMobil plans to nearly double its LNG supply by 2030 as low-cost, capital-efficient projects like the Golden Pass expansion come on line. ExxonMobil is also progressing multiple projects aimed at bringing new LNG supply to world markets.
On 14 November, ExxonMobil and Italy’s Eni announced shipment of first LNG from the $8-billion Coral South floating LNG (FLNG) project offshore Mozambique in the Rovuma Basin. Partners in the Rovuma LNG project may construct a second FLNG to circumvent political risks that have disrupted ExxonMobil from building an onshore megaplant as originally envisioned.
QatarEnergy is likewise fast-tracking new LNG projects, focusing at home on the Sultanate’s North Field expansion that intends to boost Qatar’s LNG production by 64%.
