(The Center Square) _ Commonwealth LNG has requested a four-year extension to finish construction and bring into service an export facility in Cameron Parish, citing circumstances beyond its control that include regulatory delays during the Biden Administration and legal challenges by environmental groups, according to the company’s filing at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
In November 2022, the five-member commission voted unanimously to give final approval to Commonwealth to build and operate a 9.5 million-tons-per-year LNG export facility on the west side of the Calcasieu Ship Channel, the company said in the petition for an extension.
Although approved by FERC to operate the LNG export facility in 2022, Commonwealth said it experienced “historic, unprecedented delays” during the Biden presidency for Department of Energy approval that would allow it to sell gas to companies that do not have a free trade agreement with the United States. Commonwealth’s application to trade with countries with no free trade agreement remained pending with DOE for far longer than any other U.S. LNG terminal developer, the company said in the filing
In October 2019, Commonwealth received Department of Energy approval to trade with countries that have free trade agreements with the United States, the company said in the filing. It was not until February 2025 that the export facility received Department of Energy approval to trade with countries without free trade agreements with the United States.
“This conditional authorization from the Department of Energy is a major step toward restoring U.S. regulatory certainty and marks a return to regular order in LNG project approvals,” Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for LNG, said when the free trade agreement was approved.
Additionally, Commonwealth said its application was subsumed under DOE’s formal pause in reviewing export applications while it updated its economic and environmental analyses, the company said in the extension request.
Commonwealth cited legal challenges as one of the reasons “good cause” exists for the proposed extension. Soon after Commonwealth received FERC’s final approval in 2022, environmental groups sued to stop the project. They included the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade.
The environmental groups argued that FERC’s initial approval did not adequately assess the impacts of greenhouse gases and nitrogen dioxide emissions. In July 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found FERC’s 2022 order was deficient in its environmental review and remanded to FERC for further proceedings and analysis.
FERC conducted the analysis required by the court and in June 2025 it approved Commonwealth a second time to build and operate the LNG plant.
This conditional authorization from the Department of Energy is a major step toward restoring U.S. regulatory certainty and marks a return to regular order in LNG project approvals, said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for LNG, when Commonwealth received the approval.
Commonwealth has signed supply agreements totaling 5 million tons per year with EQT, a natural gas producer headquartered in Pittsburgh, Switzerland-based Glencore; JERA, Japan’s largest electricity company; and Malaysia’s state oil company Petronas.
The requested extension would move the project completion deadline from the original date of Nov. 17, 2027, to Dec. 31, 2031.
