1st shale-gas export terminal starts up

Cheniere Energy Inc. began production at what will become the first terminal to export natural gas from America’s shale formations, according to ING Capital LLC, which helped finance the project.

The company is receiving about 50 million cubic feet of the fuel a day, chilling it into liquefied natural gas at the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana and storing it in tanks before the first export, Richard Ennis, head of natural resources at ING, said by email on Wednesday.

Ennis said he receives regular updates from the company and that he hadn’t been informed of a delay in the startup. Cheniere spokesman Faith Parker didn’t immediately respond to telephone and emailed requests for comment.

Cheniere has previously said the inaugural cargo will leave the complex this month by tanker and that U.K.-based BG Group PLC is contracted to take the first shipment. Sabine Pass is “on schedule,” Ennis said. “You can’t dock a ship to offtake the LNG until you have a full shipload of LNG in the tanks, which is planned to happen in January.”

The start at Sabine Pass paves the way for other planned liquefied natural gas terminals that are projected to turn the U.S. into one of the world’s largest suppliers. The country may be capable of exporting 7.76 billion cubic feet of gas a day by 2019, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysis shows.

While the U.S. has been sending gas abroad from Alaska for years, Cheniere’s cargo would mark the first to leave from the lower 48 states, a testament to surging shale supplies that have sent domestic stockpiles to record levels.