Venture Global has said it will build one of the US’s largest new liquefied natural gas export plants on the Louisiana coast, the first such project to be sanctioned since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked a rush to secure more American energy supplies for a strained global market.
The $13.2bn in funds secured for the development, which includes a pipeline, also marked the largest project-financing transaction in the world in 2022, Venture Global said on Wednesday. The investment is a sign of renewed investor appetite for fossil fuel projects amid fears of supply shortages and a run-up in oil and gas prices in recent months.
The Plaquemines project will supply more than 13mn tonnes a year of LNG, equivalent to about 15 per cent of total US export capacity. LNG is a super-chilled form of natural gas that can be loaded on to ships for export globally.