Regulators to Decide in April on Venture Global LNG Permit Extension

U.S. energy regulators on Friday said they would decide quickly on liquefied natural gas developer Venture Global LNG's request for a one-year extension to its construction permit for its Calcasieu Pass LNG plant in Louisiana.

The LNG developer last week asked for an extension to complete construction on the gas-export plant, or to receive assurances it did not need an extension.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said it aims to issue an order on the company's request within 45 days. It first will accept public comments through March 8 but will not revisit the plant's original export authorization, FERC said.

"The Commission will address all arguments relating to whether the applicant has demonstrated there is good cause to grant the extension," the FERC said on its website.

Thursday's announcement came on the same day that Italian electric firm Edison SPA (EDNn.MI) and Portugal's Galp Energia (GALP.LS) joined three other Venture Global LNG customers in asking to be allowed to challenge Venture Global LNG's extension request.

Customers BP PLC (BP.L), Shell plc (SHEL.L), and Repsol SA (REP.MC) sought permission to intervene in considerations on the proposed extension. The Calcasieu Pass facility has been operating since March 2022 but considers those operations pre-commercial.

The five contract holders have pressed regulators for the FERC's evaluations to show whether they could be supplied cargoes under long-term contracts.

Galp Energia wants documents that Venture Global filed under privilege released to it so it can evaluate the LNG developer's request for the extension, it wrote.

"It should be beyond dispute that documents related to the status and progress of construction are relevant to a request for extension of time to complete construction," Galp said in its letter to the FERC.

(Reporting by Curtis Williams; Editing by Mark Potter and Jonathan Oatis)