Golden Pass LNG Terminal, Texas

A massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on 900 acres near Sabine Pass, south of Port Arthur. This facility, opening in 2010, after three years of construction, cost over $1billion. It was built to hold and distribute LNG produced from offshore oil fields in Qatar. The facility is owned primarily by the government of Qatar's petroleum company, with a remaining 30% shared by ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. The terminal is located on the Sabine-Neches Waterway, and has berths for unloading two LNG ships at a time. The 69-mile long, 42-inch wide Golden Pass Pipeline, was also built to connect the terminal to the national LNG pipeline grid. There is another large LNG terminal across the channel from this one, on the Louisiana side, making this perhaps the largest LNG port area in the country. As of 2014, the facility has lain dormant for almost 3 years, due to the glut of domestic gas produced by fracking, which has made Qatari gas largely irrelevant to U.S. domestic gas needs. Qatar Petroleum and Exxon Mobil are now considering a plan to convert the plant to function as an export facility, rather than an import one - at a projected cost of at least $10 billion.