(Oil Price) – TotalEnergies on Friday announced a deal to buy a 45% stake in dry gas-producing assets owned and operated by Lewis Energy Group in the Eagle Ford basin in Texas, growing its gas production business and boosting its LNG portfolio.
The assets that TotalEnergies is buying are located in Southwest Texas and have the potential to be developed to reach a sustainable gross production of around 400 Mcf/d by 2028.
TotalEnergies, which is the leading exporter of U.S. LNG, is further increasing the integration across its gas value chain in the United States, the French supermajor said.
The deal is the second such transaction announced this year after TotalEnergies in April agreed to buy the 20% interest held by Lewis Energy Group in the Dorado leases operated by EOG Resources in the Eagle Ford.
In the U.S. natural gas sector, TotalEnergies also operates a technical production of around 500 Mcf/d in the Barnett.
“This acquisition further strengthens our upstream gas position in the United States and contributes to our integrated LNG position with a low cost upstream gas supply”, said Nicolas Terraz, President, Exploration & Production at TotalEnergies.
The French group exported more than 10 million tons (Mt) of LNG from the U.S. in 2023, which makes it the largest exporter of American LNG. This is thanks to TotalEnergies’s 16.6% stake in the Cameron LNG plant in Louisiana and several long-term purchasing agreements.
The company aims to have its U.S. LNG export capacity reach 15 Mt per year by 2030, after the start-up of the Rio Grande LNG plant in South Texas.
However, the Rio Grande LNG has recently suffered a regulatory setback. Last month, a U.S. appeals court vacated the authorization of NextDecade Corporation’s Rio Grande LNG export project issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on the ground that the FERC should have issued a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) during its remand process.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
