Venture Global LNG asks US energy regulator to keep documents confidential
HOUSTON, March 14 (Reuters) - Liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter Venture Global LNG on Thursday delivered to U.S. regulators a proposed protective order seeking to keep documents on the construction of a Louisiana export facility confidential.
The request will test the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) willingness to back a call by Venture Global LNG's customers to require the company to disclose details on the plant's startup and repairs.
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Venture Global has said it would not make the information available unless ordered to do so.
FERC had given Venture Global five days to provide the proposed order that sets out a process for any use of its privileged information.
Customers, including BP, Shell, Edison, Repsol, Galp, Unipec and Orlen, filed with the regulator to comment on the extension, or objected to the lack of access to the documents, saying they could not evaluate its request without viewing them.
They have in the past accused Venture Global of selling billions of dollars of LNG since 2022 that should have been supplied under long-term contracts to them.
The Arlington, Virginia-based company has exported 257 pre-commercial cargoes at prices well above the rates that other exporters charged, Shell said in its request to deny the extension.
The company sold its LNG at an average of $48.8 million per cargo, or $29 million more per cargo than if the LNG was sold at the average of other U.S. exporters' prices, Shell estimated, using U.S. Department of Energy data.
Venture Global said in the past none of the companies had requested access to any confidential filings on its Calcasieu Pass facility, and it had not been required to provide a protective order.
"As Calcasieu Pass will explain in a separate filing, it opposes those requests," it told the commission.
(Reporting by Curtis Williams in Houston; editing by Gary McWilliams and Marguerita Choy)