HACKBERRY, Louisiana — Sempra Energy is pushing toward opening by late February one of its three trains at the $10 billion Cameron LNG plant here, preparing liquefied natural gas for export and connecting a sleepy hamlet to the global energy industry.

The goal: To have all three trains operational by year’s end.

“We’re almost there,” said Farhad Ahrabi, CEO of Cameron LNG, which is built on a site about 21/2 miles around near the Cameron-Calcasieu parish line, at the edge of Calcasieu Lake and near the Calcasieu ship channel, an hour and eight minutes east of Port Arthur.

The facility is some 60 percent complete, and Train No. 1 is almost ready.

“We are commissioning and starting up different units,” he said in a session with news media representatives recently. “In the next few weeks, the first ships will arrive and connect this little community to the four corners of the world.”

‘Huge’ effort

Ahrabi said building the site represents “huge civil engineering, construction and logistics efforts” that require “patience, dollars and knowhow.”

Here’s how big an effort that represents: 240,000 cubic yards of concrete has been poured at the facility; 55,000 tons of steel erected; 7.45 million linear feet of cable installed; 1 million linear feet of piping installed; and 66 million manhours of work completed — without “lost-time” incidents.

In fact, because of that commitment to safety, news reporters invited to the plant last week had to dress with construction safety clothing and equipment, although they barely cleared the van while touring the site.

But designing and building the site represents only one of four “buckets” required to build the company itself. The company has recruited, trained and developed a staff. Some five years ago, Cameron LNG put into place the processes for the site that include information technology, infrastructure, maintenance. Lastly, they built a “culture of organization.”

That last is important, Ahrabi said. Sempra and its partners wanted Cameron LNG to bear a “culture by design,” not by default. They wanted Cameron LNG to be deliberate about what they wanted to become, as they should to make the company the premier North American energy company.

 

One of five

What Cameron represents to Sempra is a vital part of the plan to become the premier North American energy company. To that end, Cameron is one of five projects, three of which will be built on the Gulf of Mexico coast.

Among those projects is the development of Port Arthur LNG, also a $10 billion plant that has cleared several hurdles, including securing contracts for sales and meeting environmental standards. The five projects will produce some 45 million tonnes per annum of LNG.

Cameron LNG was initially developed to import, not export LNG.

“But the world changed,” Ahrabi said: Because of technological advances in the U.S. an abundance of natural gas could be accessed here, enough so that the U.S. could become an exporter of LNG rather than an importer. Sempra, which owns 52 percent of the Cameron LNG project, partnered with Mitsui, Total and Mitsubishi to transform the Hackberry site into an export facility. Since 2010 Sempra and partners have conceived, designed and launched the laborious processes that have taken them to today.

That meant filing for a litany of permits, seeking partners, securing contractors and prepping the site. The last involved construction on marshy, Cameron Parish soil, a process that necessitated elevating the muddy site to about 12 feet above sea level in places and installing pilings — some 27,000 — on which to build. The site is built to withstand a 500-year storm surge and a Category 5 hurricane.

“There was a large lake where Train No. 3 is located,” said Jamie Graham, project director. “It took a significant effort to make the soils usable.”

Parts of the facility that remained largely intact were the three LNG tanks and the docks, with two berths, from which ships will transport LNG away from the site and to buyers. Right now, Cameron LNG has a long-term contract to sell LNG to Poland.

Graham said staffing for construction peaked at about 11,000 last summer, most of whom must be bused to the site from surrounding locations. When the plant is complete, it will have about 280 employees.

 

Good feeling

Lisa Glatch, strategic initiatives officer for Sempra, said the effort will prove worthwhile.

“We feel good about the market outlook,” she said. “We have had to turn customers away.”

She said the company is in the commission, or post-construction, process for Train No. 1. The company is getting ready for ships that will come, probably within weeks.

The exact date, she said, is not yet certain, but plans call for the end of February.

“If we told the date today it might change,” she said.