Originally published for customers December 5, 2025.
What’s the issue?
Venture Global filed an application for the Plaquemines Expansion project adjacent to and sharing some facilities with the existing Plaquemines LNG terminal. Feedgas would come from the proposed intrastate, non-FERC-jurisdictional Cloud Connector Pipeline.
Why does it matter?
The expansion would add 31.0 MTPA of LNG export capacity, and Venture Global is targeting first LNG by the end of 2028, an aggressive schedule.
What’s our view?
With a changed regulatory environment, strong policy tailwinds, and shared infrastructure, the Expansion has a credible path to meeting that target.
Venture Global filed an application for the Plaquemines Expansion project adjacent to and sharing some facilities with the existing Plaquemines LNG terminal. Feedgas would come from the proposed intrastate, non-FERC-jurisdictional Cloud Connector Pipeline. The expansion would add 31.0 MTPA of LNG export capacity, and Venture Global is targeting first LNG by the end of 2028, an aggressive schedule. With a changed regulatory environment, strong policy tailwinds, and shared infrastructure, the Expansion has a credible path to meeting that target.
On November 17, 2025, Venture Global filed its application for the Plaquemines Expansion. The project would sit next to the under-construction Plaquemines LNG terminal and would add:
No new LNG storage tanks or FERC-jurisdictional pipelines are included in the proposal. The project would receive feed gas from the 48-inch diameter, roughly 300-mile Louisiana intra-state Cloud Connector Pipeline with a nominal capacity of 4.5 Bcf/d. The pipeline has a phased in-service, with final completion projected for February 2029. Separating feedgas permitting from the FERC authorization process avoids an additional federal review track and simplifies the overall regulatory profile.
Venture Global projects approximately 47 months of construction and full in-service roughly five years after FERC authorization. The near-term objective, however, is targeted first LNG production by the end of 2028. To reach that milestone, construction would need to begin in early 2027, which, in turn, requires FERC action within 12 months of the filing as Venture Global requested.
To place this into context it is useful to benchmark based on previous projects, split into two independent components:
As comparative benchmarks, we assumed it will take exactly one year after the application was filed for the Commission to conduct its environmental review and authorize the project, and roughly 24 months of construction to reach first LNG by the end of 2028.
The key question is whether FERC will conduct its environmental review of the project through an Environmental Assessment (EA) or an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under NEPA. In its application, Venture Global advocated for an EA, citing expansions at Sabine Pass, Cove Point, Freepoint, and Corpus Chrisi as precedent. Those projects took roughly 18 months on average from application to authorization, with the fastest (Sabine Pass’s expansion) at about 14.5 months. The Plaquemines expansion, however, is substantially larger. With a peak output of 31 MTPA, it is almost double the size of the largest project in that set, the Sabine Pass expansion, which was 16 MTPA.
If FERC opts for an EIS, the relevant historical benchmarks come from Venture Global’s own terminals. Plaquemines LNG terminal, Calcasieu Pass, and CP2 averaged around 34.5 months in environmental review, with the fastest, CP2, at just under 31 months.
Recent developments make the EA path more plausible. After Seven County, agencies have greater discretion in how they structure NEPA reviews, which lowers litigation exposure tied to scoping decisions. That shift gives FERC more room to rely on the expansion precedent rather than defaulting to a full EIS.
The administration’s policy posture toward LNG, along with recent statutory amendments intended to shorten federal review timelines (including the new fee-for-deadline NEPA program that Venture Global specifically cited in its application) further strengthens that case. Taken together, these factors make it more likely that FERC will proceed with an EA on a compressed schedule, bringing the developer’s one-year request closer to reach than historical timelines would suggest.
With respect to reaching first LNG, it makes sense to benchmark against other Venture Global projects starting from site preparation. Across Venture Global’s projects, the average duration from site preparation to first LNG is approximately 31.5 months. But here too, Venture Global benefits from two structural advantages:
These factors narrow the construction window relative to a greenfield terminal and support the feasibility of a late-2028 first-LNG target if site work begins in early 2027.
The Plaquemines Expansion is structured to move faster than past LNG projects, with intrastate feedgas, shared facilities, and a more flexible NEPA environment all narrowing the permitting risk profile. The key variable is whether FERC meets the one-year authorization request, which will determine whether Venture Global can hold its 2028 target. At the same time, recent developments in Louisiana surrounding the Commonwealth LNG coastal use permit ruling which we discussed most recently in Back on the Bayou: Louisiana Reissues Commonwealth’s CUP and Opens a Two-Track Legal Fight highlight that state-level actions can still introduce uncertainty and will need to be monitored closely.
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