Leading US LNG producer Cheniere Energy announced last week that it had achieved substantial completion on Train 5 of the Corpus Christi Liquefaction Stage 3 expansion project.

Under the Stage 3 expansion, seven midscale liquefaction trains with a combined capacity of over 10mn tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG are being added at the existing Corpus Christi LNG terminal in Texas. The expansion project marks a shift away from Cheniere’s earlier approach of building large-scale trains with a capacity of 5mn tpy each that can subsequently be increased through debottlenecking. The company has six such trains in operation at its Sabine Pass LNG project in Louisiana and three at Corpus Christi.

With these initial trains at Corpus Christi comprising 15mn tpy of liquefaction capacity, the Stage 3 expansion will take the terminal’s overall capacity to over 25mn tpy of LNG when it is completed. Trains 6 and 7 from the Stage 3 expansion are anticipated to be substantially complete by the end of this year.

Train 5 began producing LNG in February and Cheniere said in its March 27 announcement that the train had been completed on budget and ahead of schedule. Bechtel has been the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for all of Cheniere’s trains to date and the partnership between the two companies looks set to continue.

Cheniere also said last week that substantial completion of Train 5 followed the installation earlier in March of first steel for the CCL Midscale Trains 8 and 9 project, which represents a further phase of expansion at Corpus Christi. Trains 8 and 9 are expected to add a further 5mn tpy of capacity at Corpus Christi LNG by the end of 2028.

Meanwhile, preliminary data from LSEG cited by Reuters on April 1 showed that US LNG exports had risen to an all-time high in March. According to this data, exports rose to 11.7mn tonnes in March from 9.94mn tonnes in February. This figure also exceeded the previous monthly record of 11.5mn tonnes, which was recorded in December.

Reuters reported that shipments of LNG to Asia had more than doubled from February amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The crisis has resulted in nearly 20% of global LNG supply going offline and has forced buyers who depend on cargoes transiting the Strait of Hormuz to seek alternative sources of the fuel.

Indeed, speaking at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston last week, Cheniere’s CEO, Jack Fusco, said his company planned to send more cargoes to Asia.