On Aug. 25 a unanimous D.C. Circuit panel decided For a Better Bayou v. FERC, No. 24-1291, upholding the Commission’s authorization of Venture Global’s CP2 LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, and the associated CP Express pipeline. Eleven separate challenges, all denied.
The holding
Senior Circuit Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote that under Natural Gas Act Section 3 the Commission “begins its review from the position that it will—indeed, that it must—authorize a terminal unless the presumption is rebutted.” Evidence of environmental harm, on its own, doesn’t overcome it.
That’s a stronger statement of the default than most practitioners had assumed was on the books. Two subsidiary holdings matter nearly as much. The court upheld FERC’s reliance on EPA’s national ambient air quality standards rather than a separate health-impact screening model, finding that a “choice among reasonable analytical methodologies is entitled to deference.” And it found FERC had adequately weighed impacts on Calcasieu Ship Channel commercial shrimping. On CP Express, the panel accepted market need on the basis of a long-term capacity agreement between Venture Global subsidiaries, absent evidence of self-dealing.
Construction was already well past the point of no return
Venture Global said on Aug. 11 that 16 liquefaction modules are on site, roofs are raised on all four LNG storage tanks, and five gas and steam turbines are set on foundations. Those are the developer’s figures. Worley holds the EPC contract for both phases. Phase 1 reached a $15.1 billion final investment decision; Phase 2 hit FID in March with $8.6 billion in additional project financing.
The terminal is designed for up to 28 MTPA across 36 modular liquefaction trains, four tanks and two marine berths. CP Express adds an 85-mile pipeline from East Texas plus the Moss Lake Compressor Station across a 1,150-acre site. First LNG is targeted for the second half of 2027. FERC held its first scoping session on Venture Global’s proposed 11.7-MTPA Cameron Parish expansion the same day the ruling issued.
What it does to risk pricing
This is the clearest appellate statement yet that NEPA and air-quality challenges are a weak lever against an LNG terminal that FERC has approved on a defensible supplemental EIS. Contractors and lenders price permitting-reversal risk into Gulf Coast EPC work, and this ruling lowers it for a large block of Louisiana industrial backlog plus the expansion sitting behind it. Expect the presumption language cited in every Gulf Coast LNG, petrochemical and pipeline appeal still inside its window.
Heavy industrial programs elsewhere carry the mirror-image risk, where the permitting is settled and the capital timing isn’t. At Salzgitter’s SALCOS direct reduction plant in Lower Saxony, roughly €1 billion of public funding is committed and the later stages still slipped to 2028 and 2029.
The 28 billion dollar total is an estimate; the $15.1 billion Phase 1 FID and $8.6 billion in Phase 2 financing are the hard numbers. Worley’s parent is Australian, though its U.S. operations run the job.