Caturus Announces a 7.75 Million Ton per Year Commonwealth LNG Expansion That Nearly Doubles the Terminal to 17.25 MTPA, Sempra Signs a 20 Year LNG Sales Agreement with Petrobras and Files FERC Pre Filing on the 27 MTPA Port Arthur LNG North Expansion, Aligned Data Centers Breaks Ground on the 2 Gigawatt 10 Billion Dollar Project Phoenix Campus in Beaver County Pennsylvania, Microsoft Discloses a Plan to More Than Triple Data Center Capacity to 38 Gigawatts by 2032, and AGC Reports Construction Unemployment at a Record Low 3.1 Percent as the Industry Adds 22,000 Jobs in August

Caturus Nearly Doubles Commonwealth LNG to 17.25 MTPA with a 7.75 MTPA Five Train Expansion

On September 15 Caturus (the Kimmeridge backed US LNG developer that reached final investment decision on the Commonwealth LNG export terminal in May 2026 and closed 9.75 billion dollars in base project financing) announced a five train, 7.75 million ton per year expansion project for its Commonwealth LNG facility in Cameron Parish Louisiana. Adding the expansion trains would nearly double the terminal's planned capacity to approximately 17.25 million tons per year. The company confirmed that base project construction (the previously sanctioned six train, 9.5 million ton per year Phase 1) is progressing safely and on schedule with operations targeted for 2030, and that approximately 8.5 million tons per year of the base project's 9.5 MTPA capacity is already subscribed under long term sale and purchase agreements. The expansion project is targeted to enter service in the early 2030s, following planned base project operations. Caturus said the expansion opens a significant new long term supply tranche for global buyers, and has not yet initiated FERC or Department of Energy regulatory proceedings for the expansion trains.

Commonwealth is the newest Louisiana LNG expansion decision on top of an already historic Gulf Coast LNG expansion cycle. On September 14 Sempra Infrastructure signed a 20 year, 0.8 million ton per year sales and purchase agreement with Petrobras for LNG offtake from Port Arthur LNG Phase 2, adding another long term investment grade counterparty to the Port Arthur LNG platform. Sempra also confirmed formal FERC pre filing on the Port Arthur LNG North Project, a 27 million ton per year, four train brownfield expansion in Jefferson County Texas with three new LNG storage tanks and two new marine berths that would enable exports in the second half of 2034. And on September 14 Fitch Ratings assigned a BBB minus rating with Stable Outlook to Rio Grande LNG LLC's senior secured notes, reflecting long term sale and purchase agreements with predominantly investment grade counterparties and confirming the credit strength of the NextDecade Rio Grande LNG Phase 1 project as construction on Trains 1 and 2 continues toward first gas in the second half of 2026 and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027.

Sempra Signs a 20 Year Petrobras Offtake for Port Arthur LNG and Files FERC Pre Filing on a 27 MTPA Port Arthur LNG North Expansion

On September 14 Sempra Infrastructure announced a 20 year sales and purchase agreement with Petrobras under which Sempra will supply approximately 0.8 million tons per year of LNG on a free on board basis from Port Arthur LNG Phase 2. The contract was signed at the end of August and marks the latest long term LNG offtake commitment from the Sempra platform. Petrobras is a Brazilian state controlled major with investment grade counterparty credit, and the 20 year term extends the contracted portfolio underpinning the Port Arthur LNG platform. Port Arthur LNG Phase 2 (a sanctioned expansion at the Port Arthur LNG site in Jefferson County Texas with two additional liquefaction trains totaling approximately 13 million tons per year of nameplate export capacity) is targeting commercial operations in 2030 and 2031 for Trains 3 and 4 following the sanctioned Phase 1, which is currently in construction with Train 1 commercial operation targeted for 2027 and Train 2 in 2028. Sempra also confirmed formal FERC pre filing on the Port Arthur LNG North Project, a 27 million ton per year four train brownfield expansion in Jefferson County Texas with three new LNG storage tanks (storage tanks 3, 4, and 5) and two new marine berths that would enable exports in the second half of 2034.

The FERC pre filing is a milestone. The Port Arthur LNG North Project involves the permitting and possible construction and operation of up to four additional liquefaction trains (Trains 5, 6, 7, and 8) at approximately 6.73 million tons per year each, and if fully built and sanctioned it would lift the total Port Arthur LNG platform (Phase 1 plus Phase 2 plus North) to more than 50 million tons per year of contracted LNG export capacity from a single site. Sempra's Port Arthur Pipeline Louisiana Connector (the 72 mile, 42 inch diameter, 2 billion cubic feet per day pipeline delivering natural gas from the Gillis Hub in Louisiana to Port Arthur LNG) went into service on June 9 (delivered ahead of schedule and under budget with capital expenditures under 1 billion dollars) and is now supplying feed gas for the Phase 1 trains under construction.

Fitch Rates Rio Grande LNG Senior Secured Notes BBB Minus with Stable Outlook

On September 14 Fitch Ratings assigned a BBB minus rating with a Stable Outlook to Rio Grande LNG LLC's senior secured debt. The BBB minus rating on RGLNG's senior secured notes is underpinned by long term sale and purchase agreements with predominantly creditworthy counterparties, including major integrated oil companies, national oil companies, and diversified commodity trading firms. The Stable Outlook reflects Fitch's expectation that the project will complete construction on schedule and begin generating contracted cash flows within the expected timeline. Fitch noted the project has a key exposure to the Bay Runner Pipeline (BRPL), which WhiteWater Midstream is developing separately and which is required for full feed gas delivery to Rio Grande LNG.

NextDecade's Rio Grande LNG Phase 1 (Trains 1, 2, and 3 at approximately 17.6 million tons per year of nameplate capacity in aggregate) is under construction on the Texas Gulf Coast in Cameron County Texas. NextDecade reported in its second quarter 2026 update that Trains 1 and 2 are 74.0 percent complete overall (engineering 99.1 percent, procurement 97.8 percent, construction 58.9 percent, commissioning 0.6 percent), Train 3 is 50.4 percent complete overall, Train 4 (the newest sanctioned train) is 15.5 percent complete, and Train 5 is 9.4 percent complete against a first gas milestone in the second half of 2026 and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027. Cheniere separately continued moving Corpus Christi Stage 3 into first LNG from Train 7 and commercial service by September, and Sabine Pass Stage 5 (a lump sum turnkey EPC contract with Bechtel plus a Baker Hughes primary liquefaction equipment package awarded in July 2026) is targeting construction start in late 2026 for first exports of incremental LNG later this decade.

Aligned Breaks Ground on the 2 GW Project Phoenix Campus in Beaver County Pennsylvania

On September 10 Aligned Data Centers broke ground on Project Phoenix, a 2 gigawatt three building data center campus in Shippingport Pennsylvania on the grounds of the former Bruce Mansfield coal fired plant in Beaver County. Aligned purchased approximately 650 acres from FirstEnergy for the site, and the three buildings will total approximately 2 million square feet of AI data center capacity at full build out. The company said the campus is expected to drive 10 billion dollars in regional economic investment and support 3,000 construction jobs, and the site plan includes a 70 acre natural gas power generation pad serving the campus. Approximately 400 of the 593 acres will be graded. Aligned confirmed the site will operate as a zero water data center. Aligned is a Dallas based ultra efficient data center developer and operator serving the world's most demanding compute workloads.

Project Phoenix follows a broader pattern of former coal fired plant sites being converted into gigawatt scale AI data center campuses because those sites carry the two things every hyperscaler is now trying to secure: existing transmission infrastructure and utility grade water and sewer already in place. Alongside Project Phoenix, hyperscale AI data center construction continued to accelerate through the week. On September 5 through 6 TCS subsidiary HyperVault and its partners announced a phased 1 gigawatt AI data center campus in the Indian state of Telangana at 7.41 billion dollars, providing another confirmation of the gigawatt scale AI data center absorption curve. LG Uplus announced a standardized prefabricated modular data center model on September 6 to shorten construction periods and standardize quality for AI infrastructure. And Meta continued advancing the 5 gigawatt Hyperion campus in Richland Parish Louisiana toward 7,500 peak construction workers and 1,000 permanent operational jobs, Anthropic continued locking in Google Cloud TPU capacity at 5 gigawatts through 2027 on top of the 20 gigawatt Broadcom Apollo Blackstone XPU platform in initial deployment via Fluidstack, and Fermi America's Project Matador and the Anthropic Nexus Data Centers Hubbard Texas 1.6 gigawatt campus continued moving through construction.

Microsoft Discloses a Plan to More Than Triple Data Center Capacity to 38 GW by 2032

On September 10 Bloomberg reported that Microsoft plans to build out its global data center capacity to more than 38 gigawatts by 2032 (up from approximately 12 gigawatts today), a more than threefold increase driven by AI workload growth and a capacity crunch that has forced the company to turn away enterprise AI and cloud workloads, restrict Xbox cloud streaming for paying subscribers, and watch GitHub route developer traffic to Amazon because Azure had no room for it. The build out is expected to be split across Microsoft owned facilities and leased facilities from Digital Realty, Equinix, and other third party data center operators, and the disclosed 26 gigawatt increase in capacity across a six year window is one of the largest single hyperscaler capacity additions ever put on paper.

Microsoft's disclosure lands on top of an already historic hyperscale AI capacity build out. Meta Hyperion at 5 gigawatts and 50 billion dollars in Richland Parish Louisiana is expanding construction employment from approximately 3,700 workers today to 7,500 at peak with 1,000 permanent operational jobs after completion in 2036. OpenAI, Nvidia, and SB Energy finalized an 8 gigawatt Ohio data center lease at the PORTS Pike Technology Campus in Pike County Ohio with Nvidia providing up to 105 billion dollars in credit support. JLL's Midyear 2026 report confirmed North America absorbed 25 gigawatts of data center capacity in the first half of the year (double year over year, five times the two year prior comparable), with 66 gigawatts under construction, 95 percent pre committed, and vacancy at 1 percent for the third consecutive year. Anthropic secured 5 gigawatts of Google Cloud TPU capacity through 2027 on top of the 20 gigawatt Broadcom Apollo Blackstone XPU platform in initial deployment via Fluidstack, with Anthropic committed to renting more than 10 gigawatts of servers from cloud providers to date under an operating model where it is expected to spend up to 100 billion dollars for approximately 5 gigawatts of compute capacity over time.

AGC Reports Construction Unemployment at a Record Low 3.1 Percent, and the Craft Constraint Sets the Ceiling on Everything

On September 4 AGC of America reported that construction firms added 22,000 jobs in August 2026 to reach 8,359,000 total construction employment (up from 8,337,000 in July as revised), and construction unemployment fell to an all time low of 3.1 percent. Year over year construction employment grew by 176,000 workers or 2.2 percent. The AGC 2026 Workforce Survey (released September 3) continues to show acute craft shortages with 82 percent of firms reporting difficulty filling hourly craft positions and 80 percent reporting difficulty filling salaried positions. AGC noted that data centers are straining regional craft labor supply and adding a new source of demand on top of already tight LNG, midstream, refining, and petrochemical construction pipelines. ABC's projected 2026 workforce gap remains at 499,000 net new construction workers required in 2026 rising to 456,000 net new workers in 2027, and ABC's Construction Backlog Indicator rebounded to 8.5 months in August (up 0.5 months from July and unchanged year over year).

Against that binding craft constraint, the modular and prefabricated construction operating model continues to be the primary way owners buy back schedule certainty. Offsite construction industry projections continue to grow from 198.24 billion dollars in 2026 to 258.19 billion dollars in 2030, and prefabrication scope in 2026 has moved beyond duct racks in a warehouse to fully integrated MEP multi trade racks, skidded mechanical systems, electrical assemblies, modular wall systems, and equipment supports fabricated in controlled production environments parallel to site work. LG Uplus announced a standardized prefabricated modular data center model on September 6, Delta debuted a prefabricated AI modular data center solution earlier in the year to reduce deployment time by up to 60 percent, and industry analysts continue to confirm that modular and prefab data center delivery cuts build times 40 percent and costs by up to 43 percent (with the constraint now the grid interconnect, not construction speed).

The Bottom Line

This week the picture came into focus. Caturus announced a 7.75 MTPA five train expansion of Commonwealth LNG that would nearly double the terminal to 17.25 MTPA on top of a 9.5 MTPA base project already under construction with 8.5 MTPA subscribed. Sempra signed a 20 year LNG SPA with Petrobras and confirmed formal FERC pre filing on the 27 MTPA Port Arthur LNG North Project. Fitch assigned a BBB minus with Stable Outlook rating to Rio Grande LNG senior secured notes as NextDecade drives Trains 1 and 2 toward first gas in H2 2026. Aligned broke ground on the 2 GW 650 acre 10 billion dollar Project Phoenix campus in Beaver County Pennsylvania with 3,000 construction jobs expected. Microsoft disclosed a plan to more than triple data center capacity to 38 GW by 2032 with 26 GW of net new capacity across a six year window. AGC reported construction firms added 22,000 jobs in August and construction unemployment hit an all time low of 3.1 percent. TCS subsidiary HyperVault announced a 7.41 billion dollar 1 GW AI data center campus in Telangana India. And modular and prefabricated data center construction continued to accelerate as hyperscalers converge on off site fabrication to compress construction schedules by 40 to 60 percent inside a labor constrained execution environment.

PSV Industries is built as exactly that operating model for the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Vertically integrated JV. Shop based fabrication. Craft workforce owned. Structural steel fabrication, process modules, modular skid assembly, field installation and construction, shutdowns and turnarounds, and backlog relief all executed inside a single execution model. That is what owners are consolidating scope with, and that is what wins the schedule in a fabrication and construction demand curve growing at gigawatt scale against a 3.1 percent construction unemployment rate.