Sempra’s Energia Costa Azul LNG Phase 1 on track for 2025 operations

Sempra Infrastructure’s 12.4-million tonne/year (tpy) Energía Costa Azul LNG Phase 1 plant remains on track to reach commercial operations by third-quarter 2025. Sempra last year received US Department of Energy permission to increase the amount of LNG it would be allowed to export to countries with which the US did not have a free trade agreement (OGJ Online, Dec. 21, 2022).

Energia Costa Azul is under development at Sempra’s existing LNG import terminal in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, along the Pacific Coast. It is also developing the greenfield 4-million tpy Vista Pacifico LNG plant in Topolobampo, Sinaloa, Mexico, from which it expects to begin exports in 2027.

In first-quarter 2023, Sempra’s 6.75-million tpy Cameron LNG Phase 2 project in Hackberry, La., received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for modifications to its expansion permit. The modifications approved by FERC include using electric-drive motors to replace gas turbine drives, which is expected to lower the overall direct onsite emissions of Phase 2 compared with the previously authorized project and will also allow the tie-in of carbon capture and sequestration equipment into Phase 1 to further reduce overall plant emissions.

The new train being added as part of Phase 2, combined with debottlenecking the three existing 4.5-million tpy trains, will bring Cameron LNG’s total capacity to more than 20.25 million tpy (OGJ Online, Apr. 4, 2022). Sempra’s partners in Cameron LNG are TotalEnergies SE, Mitsui & Co., and Japan LNG Investment LLC.