Venture Global has agreed to sell 1 million tonnes per annum of liquefied natural gas from its CP2 LNG facility in the US to JERA of Japan via a 20-year sales and purchase agreement.

Venture Global said more than a third of the facility’s 20 million tpa has been sold, bringing significant commercial momentum for the project. The company added discussions are being had with prospective buyers for the remainder of the capacity.

Construction of the project is expected to start this year.

“Venture Global is thrilled to be expanding our partnership with JERA, one of the world’s premiere energy providers and largest buyers of LNG,” said Mike Sabel, chief executive of Venture Global LNG.

“Japan has taken a pragmatic approach to ensuring its energy security while advancing environmental progress. We are honoured to supply our growing customer base in Japan with a clean and reliable source of lower carbon energy and look forward to supporting JERA in its efforts to bring LNG to the region for many years to come.”

JERA’s senior managing executive officer of Optimisation, Sunao Nakamura, added: “LNG procurement competition has been intensifying and, thus, stable procurement of LNG in a timely manner in line with the domestic electricity supply-demand situation is needed to secure a stable supply of energy in Japan.

“This is a destination free FOB (free on board) contract, which enables JERA to secure LNG in a high flexible manner and is expected to help with our capability to respond to volatility in the domestic electricity supply and demand.”

CP2 is Venture Global’s third LNG project, and the company plans to develop carbon capture and sequestration technologies at each one. The company’s Plaquemines facility reached the final investment decision last month.