Cheniere Ships 5,000th LNG Cargo as Corpus Christi Expansion Wraps Up

Cheniere Energy has completed its major Stage 3 expansion at the Corpus Christi LNG terminal in Texas while marking another milestone for its U.S. Gulf Coast export business with the shipment of its 5,000th LNG cargo.

The Houston-based LNG producer said the Corpus Christi Liquefaction Stage 3 project reached substantial completion on August 28, when engineering and construction contractor Bechtel handed over the seventh and final liquefaction train.

The expansion increases Cheniere’s total LNG production capacity by more than 20% to approximately 56 million tonnes per annum across its Corpus Christi and Sabine Pass facilities.

Cheniere gave Bechtel full notice to proceed on the Stage 3 project in June 2022. First LNG from the expansion was produced in December 2024, with the remaining trains progressively entering service over the following two years.

“With the substantial completion of CCL Stage 3, Cheniere and Bechtel have again delivered a major LNG project safely, on budget and ahead of schedule, solidifying our track record of excellence in project execution,” said Jack Fusco, Cheniere’s Chairman, President and CEO.

The completion comes as Cheniere marks a separate milestone in the rapid expansion of its LNG export business.

The company’s 5,000th cargo was loaded aboard the LNG carrier Yari at Sabine Pass and departed the Louisiana export terminal on August 29 bound for Asia.

Cheniere said it reached 5,000 cargoes faster than any LNG producer worldwide.

The milestone comes just over a decade after Cheniere shipped its first LNG cargo from Sabine Pass in 2016, helping usher in the modern era of large-scale U.S. LNG exports.

Since then, Cheniere says it has supplied more than 340 million tonnes of LNG to markets around the world, with its liquefaction platform now accounting for more than 10% of global LNG production capacity.

“Producing and exporting 5,000 LNG cargoes is a remarkable achievement, and doing so in record time – just 10 years after our first cargo – makes it even more extraordinary,” Fusco said.

The pace of growth is particularly notable compared with Cheniere’s earlier milestones.

The company shipped its 1,000th cargo in January 2020 aboard the LNG carrier Hoegh Galleon from Corpus Christi, less than four years after exports began at Sabine Pass. At the time, Corpus Christi had only recently shipped its 100th cargo and the Stage 3 expansion was still in development following federal approval.

Cheniere has therefore shipped another 4,000 cargoes in roughly six and a half years.

The company today operates the Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi liquefaction facilities, giving it approximately 56 mtpa of combined LNG production capacity. Another roughly 5 mtpa of capacity is under construction, while Cheniere continues to pursue additional expansion opportunities along the LNG value chain.

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