NextDecade Awards $4.3 Billion Contract for Rio Grande LNG Project

U.S. NextDecade Corporation has awarded a $4.3-billion engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to Bechtel Energy Inc for the fourth train of the Rio Grande LNG export project in Texas.

NextDecade, which has recently welcomed foreign shareholders to the project, continues to target a positive Final Investment Decision of Train 4 in the second half of 2024, subject to gaining appropriate commercial support and obtaining adequate financing to construct Train 4 and related infrastructure, the corporation said in a statement.

NextDecade currently expects total estimated project costs at between $6.0 billion and $6.2 billion for Train 4 and related infrastructure, in line with the per-train cost of the three-train Phase 1 at the Rio Grande LNG Facility, which is currently under construction.

In May, ADNOC bought an 11.7% stake in Phase 1 of NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG project in the first strategic investment of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company in the U.S.

The state energy firm of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has also signed a 20-year LNG offtake agreement from Rio Grande LNG Train 4 with NextDecade.

According to the UAE’s firm, NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG would be a “world-class lower-carbon LNG project.”

Rio Grande LNG near Brownsville, Texas, is the first U.S. LNG project offering expected emissions reduction of more than 90% through its proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, ADNOC said in May.

In June, Saudi Aramco said it expects to buy liquefied natural gas from NextDecade’s planned train 4 at the Rio Grande LNG facility under a 20-year agreement. Aramco and NextDecade are currently in the process of negotiating a binding agreement, the effectiveness of which will be subject to a positive Final Investment Decision on Train 4.

Aramco, the world’s top crude exporter and the world’s biggest oil firm, has been seeking a greater role in the global LNG market as it plans to ramp up its natural gas production and trading business.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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