Cove Point LNG Facility Now Second in U.S. to Export Natural Gas

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The first commercial export cargo of liquefied natural gas has shipped from Dominion Energy’s new Cove Point liquefaction and export facility in Maryland.

The facility is now the second in the United States to export American-produced natural gas to international markets.

Dominion Energy will produce LNG for ST Cove Point, a joint venture of Sumitomo Corporation and Tokyo Gas, and for Gail Global (USA) LNG, the U.S. affiliate of GAIL (India) LTD, under 20-year contracts.

The first commercial cargo for export departed Cove Point on Monday aboard the 160,000-cubic meter LNG tanker Adam LNG bound for Suez, Egypt, according to LNG ship tracking data.

Two commissioning cargos have already been loaded and shipped from the facility.

Dominion Energy says the Cove Point facility has now officially entered commercial service. After completing a planned maintenance outage, the facility has been ramping up to full production of LNG since late March, the company said.

In February 2016, Cheniere Energy Inc’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana became the first LNG export facility in the United States’ lower 48 states to begin commercial operations. 

The Cove Point liquefaction facility is designed to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and has a nameplate capacity of 5.25 mtpa of LNG, equivalent to approximately 8.3 million gallons of LNG per day.

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