Venture Global is building CP2 LNG, and on May 26, 2026 it told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission it wants to build a great deal more of it. In a joint application filed by Venture Global CP2 LNG, LLC and Venture Global CP Express, LLC — dockets CP26-530-000 and CP26-533-000 — the developer asked the Commission to authorize an expansion of an export terminal and pipeline that are themselves still under construction in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and east Texas. The numbers in the filing are large and specific, which is the right place to start.
The terminal expansion, sought under section 3 of the Natural Gas Act, consists of six additional liquefaction blocks, a new gas-fired power plant, and a third marine berth, and would increase the maximum peak liquefaction and export capacity of the CP2 LNG Terminal by approximately 11.7 million metric tonnes per annum. The pipeline side, sought under a section 7 certificate of public convenience and necessity, would add roughly 1,900 million cubic feet per day of incremental firm transportation capacity on the CP Express Pipeline, which runs from Jasper County in east Texas to the terminal. CP Express puts the total cost of its expansion at a precise $825,971,448.
"The proposed terminal expansion consists of six additional liquefaction blocks, a new gas-fired power plant, and a third marine berth and will increase the maximum peak liquefaction and export capacity of the CP2 LNG Terminal by approximately 11.7 million metric tonnes per annum (MTPA)."— Federal Register, source
The detail worth dwelling on is the gas-fired power plant inside the terminal expansion. Liquefaction is energy-hungry — chilling natural gas to roughly minus 162 degrees Celsius takes enormous compressor duty — and how a terminal powers that work shapes both its economics and its emissions profile. By proposing to build a dedicated power plant as part of the expansion, the application signals an electric-drive or self-generation approach to the new blocks rather than reliance on the surrounding grid. That choice has consequences the Commission's environmental review will have to weigh, and it is the kind of facility-level decision that a reader skimming the headline MTPA number would miss.
Why build the expansion before the base project finishes
Filing to expand a project that is not yet operating is not unusual in modern U.S. LNG, and it reflects how the business is financed and sold. Liquefaction capacity is generally underwritten by long-term offtake contracts, and a developer that sees demand for more tonnes has every incentive to seek authorization for the next phase while crews, suppliers, and the regulatory record from the base project are still warm. Permitting and construction run on multi-year clocks; starting the expansion's FERC process now is how Venture Global keeps the option to add 11.7 MTPA on a timeline that matters commercially.
The structure of the application — terminal under section 3, pipeline under section 7, filed jointly — also tells you these are deliberately linked. The filing describes the terminal expansion and the pipeline expansion as related projects collectively referred to as the CP2 LNG Expansion Project. That coupling is logical: more liquefaction capacity is worthless without more feed gas to fill it, and the roughly 1,900 MMcf/d of incremental pipeline capacity is sized to serve the new blocks. Reviewing them together lets FERC assess the expanded supply chain as a whole rather than approving capacity that has no gas to liquefy or a pipeline with nowhere to deliver.
The third marine berth in the proposal deserves its own note. A liquefaction terminal's export rate is capped not only by how fast it can chill gas but by how fast it can load that liquid onto ships, and berth capacity is a frequent real-world bottleneck. Adding a third berth alongside six new liquefaction blocks is the application matching its loading capability to its production capability — a sign the expansion is engineered to actually move the incremental 11.7 MTPA rather than to liquefy gas that then queues for an outbound vessel. It is the kind of internal consistency that distinguishes a worked-through expansion from an aspirational one.
What an application is, and is not
It is worth being disciplined about what this filing represents. An application is a request, not an approval. Authorization to site, construct, and operate the expansion would come only after FERC completes its review, including the environmental analysis the National Environmental Policy Act requires, and issues an order — a process that runs well over a year and can attach conditions. The capacity numbers and the $825,971,448 cost figure are the applicant's, set forth in the application now on file with the Commission and open for public inspection; they are not Commission findings.
What the application does establish is the scale of Venture Global's ambition at this site and the start of the clock. FERC's notice establishes an intervention deadline, the date by which shippers, landowners, competing developers, and environmental parties must file to become participants in the proceeding. The contested questions are predictable — the emissions footprint of a new gas-fired power plant, the cumulative impact of stacking expansion on an already-large terminal, and the marine and air effects of a third berth — and they will be litigated in this docket.
For now, the takeaway is the size of the proposal and the fact that it has formally begun: 11.7 MTPA of additional export capacity, six new liquefaction blocks, a power plant, a third berth, and a near-$826 million pipeline expansion, all filed as one project in late May. Announced capacity is not operational capacity, and a filing is the first step of many. energydocket will track CP26-530-000 and CP26-533-000 through the review, because what FERC authorizes — and on what conditions — is the number that will eventually matter.