Rio Grande LNG to hold open house for its massive expansion plan in Brownsville

Houston-based energy company NextDecade Corp. is hosting a public meeting this month to discuss its expansion plans for the Rio Grande LNG project in Brownsville, which could cost several billion dollars. 

Rio Grande LNG expects to spend $30 billion for trains one through five along the Brownsville Shipping Channel. 

NextDecade’s meeting is slated for Feb. 17 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Port Isabel Event and Cultural Center, located at 309 Railroad St. 

The meeting is required by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s environmental review process to inform landowners, stakeholders, and elected officials about the company’s plans. 

A liquefaction train is a processing facility that takes natural gas from a pipeline and both compresses and supercools it. The final product, liquefied natural gas, is a supercooled product often exported overseas as an alternative energy source to nations without domestic energy extraction industries, such as many European and Asian countries. 

NextDecade, a publicly traded company, already has several long-term contracts to export various volumes of LNG to companies such as ConocoPhillips, JERA, and EQT Corporation.

As a result of those contracts, four liquefaction trains are under construction, and the company approved a final investment decision for a fifth train in late 2025. The first train should be built by 2027. 

Now, Rio Grande LNG plans to add a sixth liquefaction train and marine jetty inside a massive export terminal along the Brownsville Ship Channel. 

The export terminal has space for 10 liquefaction trains on a nearly 1,000-acre site, with a capacity of 60 million tonnes of LNG per year. 

Trains one through five are under construction, and the sixth train is in the permitting process. Trains seven and eight are in planning and development. 
Next Carbon Solutions is also collaborating with Rio Grande LNG to develop a potential carbon capture and storage project at the same location, but there is no timeline for construction, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.