$18B expansion to make Louisiana LNG terminal ‘largest’ in North America

U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project developer Venture Global has announced a plan for a major expansion of its LNG facility south of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Venture Global proposes to expand the recently inaugurated Plaquemines plant’s previously envisaged capacity of 27 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) by over 18 mtpa, bringing the expected total to over 45 mtpa. The plan is to do this by adding 24 trains, which requires an additional $18 billion investment.

The U.S. player shared the plan for the brownfield expansion of its LNG facility on March 6, 2025. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, and other federal, state, and local officials and stakeholders were present during the announcement.

“Our planned expansion of Plaquemines will make it the largest LNG export facility built in North America, supplying LNG to our allies while making a substantial impact on the U.S. balance of trade,” said Venture Global CEO, Mike Sabel. 

“We believe this flexible incremental capacity will position us to respond rapidly to market growth signals. In a capital-intensive commodity industry, capital will always flow to the most competitive projects, and we believe that an expansion of Plaquemines is one of the most economically efficient opportunities available to quickly meet growing LNG demand.”

Approved during President Trump’s first term, Plaquemines LNG is said to be the newest LNG export facility to come online in the United States. The first production was achieved on December 14, 2024, with first cargo departing to Germany less than two weeks later.

A final investment decision on the Plaquemines expansion is expected to follow the first production at the firm’s CP2 LNG terminal. The US player claims to be in an “advanced stage” of engineering with major procurement work underway for the CP2 LNG Project

The proposed terminal was recently found to have “no significant” emission impacts in a draft supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) prepared by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).