NextDecade Corp. has withdrawn its application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build a carbon capture and storage (CCS) unit at its 27 million tonnes per year (tpy) Rio Grande LNG (RGLNG) plant currently under construction in Cameron County, Texas along the Brownsville Ship Channel, the company announced August 21.
The company also asked FERC to stop the CCS process.
“We appreciate FERC’s diligence during the review process,” said Matt Schatzman, Chairman and CEO of NextDecade. “The CCS project at RGLNG is not currently advanced enough to proceed with FERC’s review.”
NextDecade proposed the CCS project in 2021 to reduce the permissible CO2 -Emissions on the Rio Grande by more than 90%.
This month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the company’s FERC permit to build the LNG plant, arguing that FERC failed to issue a supplemental environmental impact statement during the remand process (OGJ Online, August 6, 2024).
Construction is currently underway on the first three liquefaction trains and associated infrastructure (Phase 1) of the plant. NextDecade is currently assessing the impact of the court decision on the timing of a positive Final Investment Decision (FID) for Train 4. The Company had expected a positive Final Investment Decision in the second half of the year.
