U.S. energy company New Fortress Energy expects to produce the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) at its Altamira export plant in Mexico by the end of the year, it said on Wednesday.

Atlamira will be Mexico’s first LNG export plant.

The company, which made the announcement in its third quarter earnings release, said the LNG would be produced at its first Fast LNG (FLNG) liquefaction train, which is capable of turning about 0.18 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas into around 1.4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG.

New Fortress said gas for the first train would come from the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan pipeline from Texas.

New Fortress, which has said the first Fast LNG train would cost about $1 billion, did not provide a timeline for its proposed Fast LNG Trains 2-5.

The company has previously said Trains 2 and 3, which could cost about $900 million each, could be installed onshore at Altamira as soon as the second half of 2024.

New Fortress has said that one of the other three remaining Fast LNG trains would go to the Lakach gas field in Mexico and two to offshore Louisiana.

On Tuesday, however, Mexican state energy company Pemex and New Fortress terminated the Lakach deal.

In addition to New Fortress’ Altamira export plant, U.S. energy company Sempra Energy and partners is building the 3.3-MTPA Costa Azul LNG export pant in Mexico.

The roughly $2 billion Costa Azul is expected to produce first LNG in mid-2025.

Several other companies are also developing LNG export plants in Mexico but no other facilities have made a final investment decision to build their projects yet.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Scott DiSavino Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Barbara Lewis)