OREANDA-NEWS. The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) plans to prepare environmental impact statements for three proposed LNG export projects in Brownsville, Texas.

The projects, which are in the agency's pre-filing review process, are Annova LNG, Rio Grande LNG and Texas LNG.

FERC requires LNG projects to be in the pre-filing stage at least six months to identify major permitting issues and stakeholders before submitting a formal application for construction authorization. The entire FERC process can cost as much as $150mn for complex LNG projects.

FERC will accept public comments until 24 August on what issues should be considered in the reviews. It also will hold a meeting on 11 August in Port Isabel, Texas, to receive comments on any of the three projects.

Six LNG projects have been proposed in the Brownsville area, partly because of its proximity to the prolific Eagle Ford shale gas formation. The three other projects have not started the FERC pre-filing process but have applied for export licenses from the US Department of Energy.

Annova is 96pc owned by gas and electric utility Exelon, a major producer of nuclear power in the US and owner of energy retailer Constellation. The remaining 4pc is owned by company president David Chung and other individuals, through a venture called 1836 Energy Partners.

Annova expects to come on line by 2020 and needs to sign enough long-term contracts with customers for it to make a final investment decision by late 2017 to reach that goal.

The $3bn project would have peak capacity of 7mn t/yr, equivalent to 934mn cf/d (26mn m?/d) of natural gas, from six small liquefaction trains and could be built in three phases.

Rio Grande LNG and the planned 130-mile (209km) Rio Bravo pipeline to bring feed gas are owned by a venture of Texas-based LNG developer NextDecade, Valinor Management, Halcyon Energy Investors and York Capital Management.

The first phase is scheduled to come on line in the fourth quarter of 2020. The project at full build-out would have up to six liquefaction trains with combined capacity of 27mn t/yr, at a total cost of $23bn-$27bn.

Texas LNG plans to come on line in 2020 with initial capacity of 2mn t/yr and could be expanded to 4mn t/yr. Texas LNG plans to bring gas via a planned 150-mile (241km) extension of an existing intrastate pipeline that would connect the Agua Dulce hub in Nueces county, Texas, to markets in Brownsville and Mexico.

One of the Brownsville projects that has not started the FERC pre-filing process is the 2.8-Bcf/d Gulf Coast LNG Export, which is 97pc owned by Michael Smith, the majority owner of the Freeport LNG export facility being built in Texas. The others are the floating Eos LNG and Barca LNG projects, which each would have capacity equivalent to 1.6 Bcf/d of gas. They are 49pc owned by Andrew Kunian, with the remaining shares owned by other individuals.