Houston liquefied natural gas company Cheniere Energy hit a milestone 1,000th export shipment of LNG — and the cargo is headed to France.
The Norwegian-flagged LNG tanker Hoegh Galleon left the company’s Corpus Christi LNG export terminal with the company’s 1,00th cargo on Monday morning.
Cheniere Energy CEO Jack Fusco told the Houston Chronicle that the tanker is headed to France and that the milestone shipment comes less than four years after the company’s first cargo was sent out from Sabine Pass LNG in Louisiana in February 2016.
The 1,000 cargoes, he said, carried enough natural gas to power all 7.4 million home in Texas for nearly five years.
“In the LNG production industry, getting to 1,000 cargoes is something special,” Fusco said. “We’re the first LNG company in the world to hit that milestone in less than four years.”
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Cheniere plans to host celebratory events on Tuesday at its liquefaction plants in Texas and Louisiana as well as its offices in Houston, London, Singapore and Beijing.
“We’re pleased to hit that milestone reliably and safely,” Fusco said. “We did it in a pretty tough four-year period — we’ve had everything from hurricanes and freezing events to wind and fog. But we made it look easy.”
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Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Houston, Cheniere Energy employs nearly 1,400 people. The company closed 2018 with a $471 million profit on $8.0 billion of revenue.
Purchasing an average of 6 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from more than 70 producers and shipped on 25 pipelines, Cheniere has emerged as the largest buyer of natural gas in the United States.
