NextDecade Corp. has notified the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of amendments to its agreements with Bechtel Energy Inc. for engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts on the 17.6-million tonne/year (tpy) Phase 1 of the proposed Rio Grande LNG plant in Brownsville, Tex. The amendments lock in agreed upon pricing until June 15, 2023, and follow NextDecade missing a deadline to issue Bechtel a notice to proceed with construction.
NextDecade also told the SEC that is targeting final investment decision (FID) for Phase 1’s three liquefaction trains by the end of second-quarter 2023. It had previously been targeting a first-quarter 2023 FID.
The EPC contract is worth roughly $11.5 billion and includes the three liquefaction trains, two marine berths, and two 180,000-cu m storage tanks.
NextDecade has so far reached long-term sales agreements with eight buyers for a total of 11 million tpy. The most recent of these was a 15-year, 1-million tpy deal concluded with Itochu Corp. earlier this year (OGJ Online, Jan. 19, 2023).
A designed second phase would add two trains and bring total capacity to 27 million tpy.
