LNG producer Woodside Energy has moved forward with its planned Louisiana LNG Infrastructure export project in Calcasieu Parish in Louisiana by selling a 40% stake to investment firm Stonepeak.

New York-based Stonepeak, which specializes in infrastructure assets, will pay Woodside $5.7 billion to help build three liquefaction trains with combined capacity of 16.5 million metric tons/year, equivalent to 2.1 Bcf/d of natural gas, the companies said Sunday.

Stonepeak will provide 75% of the expected capital cost of the project in 2025 and 2026.

Louisiana LNG has been permitted for capacity of up to 27.6 million mt/year. Woodside acquired the project in July from U.S. company Tellurian for $1.2 billion, paying $900 million in cash and assuming $300 million in debt.

Woodside said at the time that it expects to make a final investment decision in a first phase by the first quarter of 2025.

Woodside said Sunday that it is targeting selling a combined 50% of Louisiana LNG before reaching an FID and that Stonepeak's investment increased the attractiveness of the project to other potential partners.

"Our partnership with Stonepeak, together with our lump sum turnkey (engineering, procurement and construction) agreement with (U.S. engineering firm) Bechtel, and existing regulatory permits, give us confidence to progress at pace towards a final investment decision on Louisiana LNG," Woodside chief executive Meg O'Neill said in a statement. "We are pleased with the strong level of interest from counterparties and customers in Louisiana LNG."

Woodside added that Stonepeak has a "demonstrated track record investing in U.S. gas and LNG infrastructure across LNG facilities, LNG carriers, and floating storage and regasification units."

Stonepeak said the project "is nearing final investment decision for the foundation development" and that Woodside would operate the facility.

"With the need to bring significant additional capacity online over the coming years, we have strong conviction in the critical role Louisiana LNG will play in the U.S. LNG export market," said James Wyper, Stonepeak's head of U.S. private equity, in a statement.

It typically takes four or five years to build a large U.S. onshore LNG export plant after an FID. Woodside said in July that the current construction license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requires that commercial operations begin by the second quarter of 2029 and that it expects to meet that deadline, but such deadlines can be extended.

Woodside is a major Australian LNG exporter and the Louisiana plant would provide it easier access to markets in the Atlantic Basin and enhance its ability to arbitrage between the Pacific and Atlantic basins.

With Stonepeak's 40% stake costing $5.7 billion, the total cost of the first phase at a similar valuation would be $14.25 billion, or $864/mt of annual production. Woodside said in July that the projected unit cost of a first phase was $900-$960/mt of annual production.

Woodside, which plans to procure feed gas from other parties, has not discussed the cost of a planned 37-mile pipeline that would connect the plant to the regional gas grid. Tellurian in August 2023 estimated the cost at $900 million.

Woodside operates the 16.9 million mt/year North West Shelf LNG plant and the 4.9 million mt/year Pluto LNG export terminal in Australia. The company also has offtake of 1.16 million mt/year from the 8.9 million mt/year Chevron-operated Wheatstone facility in Australia.

Woodside additionally is developing the Scarborough Energy Project offshore Western Australia that would send gas through a 430-km (267-mile) subsea pipeline to the Pluto LNG plant to produce up to 8 million mt/year of additional LNG, beginning in 2026.

This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

--Reporting by Ron Nissimov, rnissimov@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly,

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 11, 2025 12:52 ET (16:52 GMT)

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