Bechtel will build out the Woodside Louisiana LNG terminal on the Gulf Coast for Woodside Energy, according to a Dec. 5 news release from Australia’s biggest oil and gas company.
The cost of the entire five-train liquefied natural gas production and export facility near Lake Charles, Louisiana, in Calcasieu Parish is estimated at $27 billion. Reston, Virginia-based Bechtel broke ground on the project in 2022, conducting demolition, site preparation and building critical foundations, the builder said in a news release at the time.
In October Woodside paid $1.2 billion for Tellurian, the parent company that had been developing the terminal, formerly named Driftwood LNG. Bechtel has continued work since the acquisition and just signed a revised lump sum turnkey engineering, procurement and construction contract to develop the three-train, 16.5 million-tonnes-per-annum foundation facility, per Woodside.
Bechtel’s new contract is for project phases one and two, which are estimated to cost $900 to $960 per tonne, a Woodside spokesperson said in an email. Phase one consists of two trains with a capacity of 11 million tonnes per annum, and phase two has one train with a capacity of 5.5 million tonnes per annum, which brings the total cost to $14.9 billion to $15.8 billion.
Bechtel has already completed substantial work on the terminal, Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill said in the October release.
“[The Woodside Louisiana LNG project] is fully permitted, front-end engineering design is complete and site civil works are well advanced,” said O’Neill.
Project difficulties
Over the years the project has encountered multiple challenges. When Tellurian awarded Bechtel $15.2 billion in contracts for construction of the project’s export facility in 2017, construction was slated to start in 2018 and the facility was expected to be operational in 2022.
However, reduced demand and the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for Tellurian to firm up deals with equity investment partners, and the project didn’t break ground until 2022. Last year Tellurian applied for a three-year construction permit extension, which pushes the launch date to at least 2029.
“The project is fully permitted and has US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval that goes until quarter two of 2029,” the Woodside spokesperson said in an email. “We have not provided guidance on a project completion date.”
The developers have also fought off lawsuits from environmental groups. Now Woodside is seeking to sell a 50% stake in the project, according to Reuters.
When fully built, Woodside Louisiana LNG will be one of the biggest plants in the world, with its five liquefaction trains producing up to 27.6 million tonnes per annum of methane gas, according to oilprice.com.
