NextDecade makes first ever LNG deal with a Japanese company

Jan. 19 (UPI) -- Houston-based NextDecade Corp. said Thursday it reached its first-ever long-term deal with a Japanese company to send over supplies from its planned liquefied natural gas terminal in Texas.

NextDecade signed a 15-year sale and purchase agreement with the Itochu Corp., based in Japan, for annual deliveries of 48.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas in the liquid form sourced from the planned Rio Grande export facility in Brownsville, Texas.

Matt Schatzman, the chairman and CEO at NextDecade, said this is a milestone as it represents the company's first such deal with a Japanese customer.

"We look forward to providing Itochu and their customers with LNG, and we are actively working to reduce the carbon footprint of the Rio Grande LNG facility through our proposed carbon capture and storage project," he added.

NextDecade said it plans to make a final investment decision on Rio Grande at some point during the first quarter.

The company said the facility will be the first of its kind in the United States that includes the infrastructure necessary to sequester carbon dioxide, removing the equivalent of pulling 1 million cars off the road each year.

Rio Grande with have three components, called trains, that can cool natural gas to the liquid form. At its peak, the company said it expects Rio Grande will produce enough LNG to satisfy the equivalent demand of all the households in California and New York combined.

This is the second agreement in the Asian market for NextDecade in less than a month. Singapore's ENN LNG in December revised its sale and purchase agreement with NextDecade to increase deliveries by 33% from the original deal. ENN will now take about twice as much as Itochu.

The United States is quickly, if it isn't already, becoming a world leader in exports of LNG. During the seven-day period ending Jan. 11, total LNG exports were 90 billion cubic feet.