Mike Willis gives his analysis of NextDecade's big LNG project at the Port of Brownsville

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Representatives from NextDecade and its main contractor for the liquefied natural gas export terminal being built at the Port of Brownsville, Bechtel, gave the keynote presentations at a recent South Texas Manufacturers Association meeting.However, the presentations were deemed private and not for publication. So, the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service sought the analysis of STMA President Mike Willis, who emceed the meeting. Guardian audio editor Mario Muñoz asked Willis what he knew of the LNG project.Willis said: “Well, this is one of the largest projects in the country and certainly the largest in the state and certainly the largest in the Rio Grande Valley. It's been years in planning and conditions are right that finally NextDecade was able to secure all the customer funding they needed, the long term commitments and they made a final investment decision to move forward with this (LNG facility at the Port of Brownsville). So, years of planning, and now they have pulled the trigger on it. They have got paying customers contracts for 20 years or more.”Willis said two other major projects related to the LNG facility would be going on at the same time.“So, this project is going forward at the Port and it is going to involve several other major projects. The Brownsville Ship Channel is going to be dredged to 52 feet deep, all the way from the jetties to the Port to facilitate these large tankers coming in to pick up liquefied natural gas. There's a major pipeline that is going to be constructed by Enbridge Energy out of Canada that will connect to pipelines flowing from the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale to Nueces Main in Corpus. They will tie into those pipelines and pipe natural gas down to the Port of Brownsville and that natural gas coming into that pipeline will be the raw material, the input for these liquefaction trains that are going to be built. So, this is an eight year long project.”Editor's Note: Go to the Rio Grande Guardian website to read the full story.Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos.