Out Fox The $treet

The recent announcement that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the Cameron LNG export project is big news for Sempra Energy ( NYSE: SRE     ) , but investors shouldn't get too excited just yet. The project is the second such LNG export facility to get approved, and the media suggests that the approval process was recently expedited to ship natural gas to Europe, and specifically Ukraine. The gas may never reach that country, though. In addition, the energy department recently changed the approval process to expedite decision-making procedures on LNG exports. Read the full article here . Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Big news lately on the LNG export front. Yesterday Cheniere Energy Partners (CQP) got approval to begin construction on it's export terminal in Louisiana. Today Sempra Energy signed agreements with 2 major Japanese companies to develop and construct a natural gas liquefaction export facility in Louisiana as well. While another major step towards exporting the abundance of cheap natural gas in the US, it will take until 2016 before the facility would commence operations. With these 2 commercial agreements with Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsui & Co ., the project would already have 66% of production set for 20 years. Now the question is whether the US government will ultimately allow the export of this natural resource. The answer so far is yes, but what happens in 2014 when the future prices for 2015 and beyond start soaring? The plan involves building 3 liquefaction trains with a total export capability of 12 Mtpa of LNG, or approximately 1.7 Bcf per day. Constructi...