US liquefied natural gas business NextDecade Corporation has signed a 20-year LNG sales and purchase deal with a subsidiary of Saudi oil and gas giant Aramco.
Under terms of the deal, the Aramco subsidiary will purchase 1.2 million tonnes per annum of LNG from Train 4 of NextDecade’s Rio Grande facility in Texas on a free on-board basis.
The agreement follows a Heads of Agreement signed between the two firms in June last year. It is also subject to a positive final investment decision (FID) on Train 4.
The total estimated project costs for Train 4 are expected to be between $6bn and $6.2bn, including related infrastructure.
Once complete, the first phase of the Rio Grande LNG facility will have a nameplate liquefaction capacity of 17.6 million tonnes a year.
A positive FID depends on securing commercial arrangements and sufficient financing being securred.
Last August, NextDecade scrapped plans to have a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project located at the Rio Grande project. Prior to this, Rio Grande LNG was going to be the first and only US LNG project to offer CO2 emissions reduction of more than 90% via CCS.
