The Gulf Coast LNG buildout crossed two structural milestones this week. Delfin Midstream reached formal final investment decision on FLNG 1, becoming the first floating LNG export vessel ever sanctioned under a US deepwater port license and committing $5 billion of capital toward 4.4 million metric tons of annual export capacity off the coast of Cameron Parish. On the same coast, Cheniere Energy began commissioning Train 7 at its Corpus Christi Stage 3 expansion, closing out a seven train buildout that will drive the company toward a 51 to 53 MTPA production run rate by the end of 2026. QatarEnergy and ExxonMobil's Golden Pass LNG received FERC clearance to commission Train 2 at Sabine Pass. The Chevron and Microsoft Project Kilby power and compute deal from last week was revised upward to a total capital commitment of approximately $9 billion. Sempra confirmed its 42 inch Port Arthur Connector pipeline is in service moving 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day into the emerging Port Arthur LNG corridor. Williams Companies is reportedly exploring a $5.5 billion acquisition to expand its LNG pipeline reach. And in the labor data that matters most to Gulf Coast execution, the AGC confirmed Houston led the nation with 12,100 construction jobs added year over year, while Baton Rouge posted the largest percentage gain at 18 percent. The June BLS report showed US construction adding 11,000 positions even as the broader labor market slowed to just 57,000 net jobs. The industrial cycle is not slowing down. It is compounding.
Delfin FLNG 1 Reaches Final Investment Decision on America's First Floating LNG Export Terminal
Delfin Midstream announced formal final investment decision on FLNG 1 this week, committing $5 billion of capital to construct the first floating liquefied natural gas export vessel ever authorized under a US deepwater port license. The US Department of Transportation issued the FLNG deepwater port license on May 25. Production is targeted to begin in 2030. Nameplate export capacity is 4.4 million metric tons per year, equivalent to approximately 6 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. The vessel will be moored in federal waters approximately 40.8 miles offshore of Cameron Parish, Louisiana, in the Gulf of Mexico. Samsung Heavy Industries will build the vessel under the $2.9 billion main contract signed in Washington DC on June 9. Vitol confirmed a 20 year, 1 MMtpa offtake agreement with International Resources Holding from FLNG 1 supply on a free on board basis.
The DOT simultaneously issued a second deepwater port license this week to Texas GulfLink, a crude oil export terminal proposed roughly 30 miles offshore of Brazoria County, Texas. The pair of licenses signals that the DOT deepwater port framework is now an active US industrial policy instrument for offshore oil and gas export capacity, sitting alongside FERC's onshore LNG authorization pathway. Delfin has stated it intends to advance FLNG 2 and FLNG 3 to FID over the next 12 months, with sponsor Vitol already in place as both equity investor and offtaker.
The Delfin sanction closes out an extraordinary six week period for US LNG. CP2 Phase 1 reached FID on July 28, 2025 with $15.1 billion of project financing. Commonwealth LNG closed $9.75 billion in project financing on June 13, 2026. Louisiana LNG closed $2.5 billion in Stonepeak private bonds on June 24. Delfin FLNG 1 has now formally sanctioned. Combined, the sanctioned Gulf Coast liquefaction capacity added in this cycle exceeds 40 MTPA, or roughly 55 billion cubic meters of annual export capacity. The US is no longer the marginal LNG supplier. It is the structural anchor of the global market.
Cheniere Corpus Christi Stage 3 Train 7 Enters Commissioning as Company Targets 51 to 53 MTPA
Cheniere Energy confirmed in filings with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and FERC that it began commissioning operations on Train 7, the seventh and final midscale train at the Corpus Christi Stage 3 expansion, in late June 2026. Commissioning activities include the thermal oxidizer and hot oil furnace, the initial steps that precede refrigerant loading and first LNG production. Trains 1 through 5 of Stage 3 have already reached substantial completion and are producing LNG. Trains 6 and 7 are expected to reach substantial completion by year end 2026, at which point the Stage 3 expansion is complete.
Cheniere raised full year 2026 Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $7.25 billion to $7.75 billion, up from the prior range of $6.75 billion to $7.25 billion. Management expects a company wide production target of 51 to 53 MTPA once Trains 6 and 7 complete commissioning and Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi are both running at full rated capacity. Cheniere is now the largest single LNG operator in the United States and one of the largest globally, with production tightly integrated with the Gulf Coast pipeline system through the Corpus Christi Liquefaction Pipeline, the Cheniere Midship pipeline, and long term commitments from Bechtel Energy under the Stage 3 EPC.
Corpus Christi is the anchor tenant of the South Texas industrial corridor that stretches from Ingleside through Portland and into the broader Nueces County industrial footprint. The same corridor now hosts the Hut 8 Beacon Point AI data center campus, the Steel Dynamics Sinton flat roll mill, the Cheniere Corpus Christi Liquefaction and Stage 3 complex, the Enbridge Ingleside Energy Center, and the ExxonMobil SABIC Gulf Coast Growth Ventures ethylene and monoethylene glycol complex at Portland. This is the exact geographic footprint where PSV Industries operates its Corpus Christi and Ingleside worksite.
Golden Pass LNG Train 2 Cleared for Commissioning, Project Kilby Revised Upward to $9 Billion, Sempra Port Arthur Connector in Service
QatarEnergy and ExxonMobil received FERC authorization this week to begin commissioning Train 2 at their $10 billion Golden Pass LNG terminal in Sabine Pass, Texas. The authorization covers the flare, refrigeration, inlet facilities, condensate stabilization, and liquefaction systems. Train 1 achieved first production on March 30, 2026, six years after the joint venture reached FID in 2019. Train 2 will follow through commissioning, then Train 3, ultimately bringing the facility to full 18 MTPA nameplate capacity. Golden Pass adds Qatari and ExxonMobil supply into a US export network that is on track to exceed 33 Bcf per day of installed liquefaction capacity by 2028.
Updated reporting on the Chevron and Microsoft Project Kilby power and compute deal from last week pegs the total capital commitment at approximately $9 billion, up from earlier reporting near $7 billion. The 2.67 GW behind the meter natural gas plant in Pecos, Reeves County, Texas, remains the largest single behind the meter data center power project ever announced. Chevron plans to reach formal final investment decision on the plant before year end 2026. First power is targeted for 2028. Microsoft's adjacent AI data center campus is planned to scale to approximately 2 GW of cloud and AI compute capacity over five to seven years, with peak construction employment expected above 6,000 jobs.
Sempra Infrastructure confirmed this week that its Port Arthur Louisiana Connector pipeline was placed in service on June 9. The 42 inch pipeline is designed to transport up to 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from Louisiana and Texas supply into the Port Arthur LNG terminal, ahead of first commercial exports expected in 2027. The Connector was delivered ahead of original schedule and under its sub one billion dollar budget. Sempra has separately taken final investment decision on Port Arthur LNG Phase 2, which will double the complex's total liquefaction capacity to 26 MTPA and place Port Arthur among the largest LNG export facilities in the world.
Williams Companies is reportedly exploring a $5.5 billion acquisition to expand its LNG pipeline reach into the Gulf Coast. Glenfarne Global Commodities executed a Heads of Agreement with BGN for 20 year, 1 MTPA LNG supply from Glenfarne's Texas LNG export project in Brownsville, advancing Texas LNG toward final investment decision. Every piece of the LNG value chain, from upstream Permian gas, to intrastate pipelines, to liquefaction, to offtake, is being locked down at the same time. The system is behaving like it is being built by a single balance sheet, but it is being built by roughly two dozen separate ones.
Texas Data Center Buildout Extends Beyond Stargate as Core Scientific, Multi Gigawatt East Texas Campus, and Nexus DC All Advance
Core Scientific announced plans this week to build a 1.5 GW AI data center campus in Texas, joining the growing list of gigawatt scale sites the state is absorbing. Data Center Dynamics reported that a separate multi gigawatt data center campus is being planned in East Texas, expanding the geographic center of gravity beyond the Shackelford, Milam, and Abilene sites already announced under the Stargate program. Nexus DC filed a $400 million application for a new Dallas data center project. Cipher is developing a 500 MW campus adjacent to a coal plant outside Waco. Galaxy Digital's Project Merlin in McGregor, Texas advanced through city council approval. Prometheus Hyperscale detailed 250 MW of natural gas behind the meter generation across Texas and Wyoming sites.
The Texas Tribune reported that 335 data centers currently operate in the state, with 248 more in the works. Dallas is now the largest single US data center market by capacity commitment for 2026 based on CRE investor tracking. Texas billionaires Ray Hunt and Harlan Crow joined a $1 billion Texas data center transaction this week alongside a bitcoin firm, per Reuters reporting. Behind the meter natural gas generation, water conservative closed loop cooling, and dedicated interconnection at high voltage transmission substations is now the standard configuration. The 15,000 miles of intrastate natural gas pipeline that Texas maintains is the physical asset that makes the entire pattern possible.
Texas is not just the largest state for LNG. It is now the largest state for hyperscale data center capacity by nearly every measure that matters, and it is drawing that capacity because it can deliver gas fired power, ERCOT interconnection, and land at speeds and scales that no other state can match. The two megaproject cycles, LNG on the coast and hyperscale AI in the interior, are drawing on the same craft labor pool, the same fabricator base, the same steel and pipe supply chain, and the same set of specialty EPC firms.
Houston Leads the Nation With 12,100 Construction Jobs Added, June BLS Report Shows Construction Adding 11,000 Positions Into a Slowing Labor Market
The Associated General Contractors of America released metro area construction employment data this week showing that Houston, Pasadena, and The Woodlands, Texas led the entire nation with 12,100 construction jobs added between May 2025 and May 2026, a 5 percent year over year gain. St. Louis added 10,500. Baton Rouge, Louisiana added 8,400 for the largest percentage gain in the country at 18 percent. Mobile, Alabama added 1,800 for a 13 percent gain. Long Island posted its first year of construction employment gains after 13 months of decline. Construction employment increased year over year in 152 of 360 US metros (42 percent), fell in 161, and was unchanged in 47. The gain concentration in Houston, Baton Rouge, and Mobile is the strongest signal in the data that Gulf Coast industrial construction is drawing the country's craft labor toward the coast.
The June BLS Employment Situation report, released July 2, showed the US economy added just 57,000 total nonfarm jobs, less than half the prior month, with the unemployment rate holding at 4.2 percent. Construction firms added 11,000 positions in June, one of the few private sector categories to post a meaningful gain against a broadly cautious hiring environment. Manufacturers added 3,000. Leisure and hospitality lost 61,000. Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers in construction remained elevated at approximately $38.97 per hour based on May reporting, more than 20 percent above the private sector production average. Associated Builders and Contractors projected earlier this year that the industry needs 350,000 net new workers in 2026 to meet demand, with a projected 456,000 worker gap by 2027.
Two data points, taken together, tell the same story. When the broader labor market slows, industrial construction is one of the few sectors still hiring. When metro construction employment growth concentrates in Houston, Baton Rouge, and Mobile, it means the Gulf Coast is where the work is. And when 58 percent of US metros are flat or negative on construction employment while Houston alone adds 12,100 workers, it means the industrial cycle is not evenly distributed. It is regionally concentrated on the coast where PSV operates.
The Bottom Line
Two structural events closed out this week. Delfin FLNG 1 reached formal FID and became the first floating LNG export vessel ever sanctioned in the United States. Cheniere Corpus Christi Stage 3 Train 7 entered commissioning, closing out a seven train buildout on schedule and driving Cheniere toward a 51 to 53 MTPA production run rate by year end. QatarEnergy and ExxonMobil received FERC clearance on Golden Pass Train 2. Chevron and Microsoft's Project Kilby was revised upward to a $9 billion capital commitment. Sempra's Port Arthur Connector is in service at 2 Bcf per day. Williams is reportedly exploring a $5.5 billion M&A to extend its LNG pipeline reach. Glenfarne signed a 20 year, 1 MTPA HoA with BGN. Core Scientific announced a 1.5 GW Texas AI campus. And Houston led the nation with 12,100 construction jobs added, while national construction added 11,000 positions in a labor market otherwise slowing to a crawl.
The 2026 buildout is no longer accumulating. It is executing. Every FID that closed in the last six weeks is now moving into procurement, mobilization, and construction phase. Every commissioning train is drawing a new labor concentration onto the coast. Every behind the meter power plant is adding another set of turbine generator, HRSG, transformer, and switchgear packages into the fabrication queue. And every megaproject cycle in the United States right now is being executed against a labor market where construction is one of the only sectors still expanding. PSV Industries is a vertically integrated joint venture executing scope of work across the exact geography, on the exact scope of work, and against the exact schedules where this convergence is happening. Structural steel fabrication. Process modules. Modular skid assembly. Field installation. Shutdowns and turnarounds. Backlog relief. Delivered by an American operating model built for the American industrial rebuild. The work is here. The capital is here. The constraint is execution. PSV is built to deliver it.