Venture Global Confirms April Commercial Start Date for Calcasieu Pass LNG
Venture Global has announced a mid-April 2025 commercial start date for its Calcasieu Pass LNG facility in Louisiana amid ongoing disputes with long-term customers over spot market sales. The facility has been exporting since March 2022, achieving 92 percent average utilisation and primarily serving European markets following Russian gas supply cuts. The April commercial start date will enable long-term tolling customers to begin lifting cargoes, nearly three years after the facility first started shipping LNG.
Venture Global has confirmed that its Calcasieu Pass LNG facility in Louisiana will commence commercial operations on 15 April 2025. The month had previously been highlighted by Italian energy group Edison as the earliest time given by Venture Global to its long-term customers. The official start in April will mean the facility’s tolling partners will finally be able to lift cargoes on their own accounts almost three years after plant began LNG shipments.
Weathering storms
Calcasieu Pass LNG is designed to export a minimum of 10 million tonnes per annum of LNG. Situated on a 432-acre plot, the facility enjoys proximity to several major interstate and intrastate natural gas pipelines. The facility's start-up timeline spans less than 68 months from the point of final investment decision. Throughout this period, the project weathered significant challenges, including two hurricanes, the Covid-19 pandemic and manufacturing complications.
"Venture Global wishes to express its gratitude to its construction and completion teams who tirelessly worked to safely complete our facilities, to our vendor teams who provided invaluable support for the necessary repairs, and to our government regulators for their oversight and cooperation", the company said in a statement.
Legal battles
However, Venture Global has also encountered multiple contractual disagreements with tolling subscribers regarding delays at Calcasieu Pass over recent years. As we have reported previously, the developer faced arbitration and regulatory complaints from major energy companies over alleged delayed long-term deliveries as it pursued higher-revenue spot market sales. Venture Global maintained that the plant was not yet commercially operational and that these sales did therefore not violate its contractual obligations.
Long-term gas offtakers such as bp alleged that Venture Global had contravened FERC regulations by submitting redacted filings that obscured the Calcasieu Pass LNG facility's operational status, circumventing transparency requirements and public scrutiny. Reports from July 2023 indicated Shell and bp had separately filed for arbitration against Venture Global over unfulfilled LNG delivery obligations.
Subsequently, in October 2024, Italy's Edison initiated international arbitration proceedings for breach of contract. Whilst Venture Global attributed the delay to technical issues, Edison countered the LNG operation had already exported 355 spot market cargoes, generating revenues exceeding US$20 billion. According to our data and calculations, exports from the plant stood at 25.17mmt at the end of January.
Venture Global commenced LNG cargo exports in March 2022. The facility achieved its nameplate capacity of 10 million tonnes per annum by September 2022 and reached substantial completion in November 2022. According to our data, Calcasieu Pass LNG operated at around 72 percent of annualised capacity utilisation that month. Average utilisation between November 2022 and January 2025 has been roughly 92pct on the back of continued year-on-year performance growth. On occasion, the plant also produced above nameplate capacity, mostly supplying LNG to Europe. Venture Global’s market entry coincided with a sharp increase in European LNG demand following severe cuts to Russian pipeline gas imports. More than two thirds of Calcasieu Pass LNG flows have been directed to Europe, according to our data.
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