US LNG Export Terminals: Capacity and Output

Nine large US terminals were exporting liquefied natural gas in 2026, with 14.0 billion cubic feet a day of peak nameplate capacity in commercial operation and another 6.2 Bcf/d in commissioning, according to the EIA's second-quarter capacity file. Exports averaged 17.4 Bcf/d from January to July 2026, up from 15.1 in 2025, and the EIA lists 17.6 Bcf/d more under construction for start dates between the second half of 2026 and 2031.

The distance between listed capacity and output is the finding to hold on to. Plants in commercial operation or commissioning list 20.2 Bcf/d of peak nameplate, January to July exports averaged 17.4 Bcf/d, and the best months at the six mature terminals ran from 97% to 127% of each terminal's listed peak.

The nine terminals on one table

Sabine Pass is still the biggest exporter, with 26.8% of 2025 volume from six trains. But the ranking by 2025 output understates the change under way. Plaquemines shipped 833 Bcf in 2025, its first full year, and Corpus Christi shipped more than in 2024 as its Stage 3 trains began to run: 840 Bcf against 739. Freeport's 767 Bcf was 29% above 2024. Seven of the nine are on the Gulf Coast; Cove Point in Maryland and Elba Island in Georgia are the Atlantic coast's two terminals, with 1.12 Bcf/d between them, about 6% of listed capacity in use.

Three kinds of capacity

The word capacity covers more than one number. The EIA's file reports baseload nameplate capacity, the volume a facility is designed to produce in a year under normal operating conditions, and peak nameplate capacity, the higher rate a train can reach. It also lists the volumes the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have authorized. For the 20 units in commercial operation, the sum of baseload capacities is 11.4 Bcf/d and of peak capacities 14.0 Bcf/d, a gap of 22%.

Which number to use depends on the question. A buyer comparing annual contract volumes thinks in baseload tonnes; an analyst checking whether the pipeline network can supply feedgas thinks in peak Bcf/d. The 2026 file lists 20.2 Bcf/d of peak capacity in commercial operation and commissioning, against average exports of 17.4 Bcf/d in January to July, so the plants as a group were running at about 86% of listed peak with part of that capacity still ramping.

A decade of start-ups

Almost all of the capacity in the table was built in ten years. The EIA's in-service dates for each unit give a calendar, and the annual export totals show how quickly output followed.

Cumulative listed capacity rose from 1.52 Bcf/d at the end of 2016 to 20.16 Bcf/d by 2026, while annual exports climbed from 0.51 Bcf/d in 2016 to 15.1 in 2025. The 6 units that began in 2019 added 3.89 Bcf/d, the most of any year, and exports that year rose 68% on 2018. No unit entered service in 2023, and exports were flat that year and the next (11.9 and 11.9 Bcf/d), a reminder that exports follow startups. The share column shows the ramp: exports ran at 34% of cumulative listed capacity in 2016, rose to 79% by 2021, and have since stayed between 75% and 85%. The share is held below 100 percent by units that entered service late in a year, maintenance and cargo timing, not necessarily by idle plants.

From first production to commercial service

The in-service date and the date of commercial service are not the same event. The EIA defines commissioning as the introduction of feedgas, system testing, first LNG production and first export, and takes the commercial service date from the FERC order that authorizes it. The gap between the two tells a reader how long a new unit spent proving itself.

Across the 20 units that have reached commercial service the gap ranged from 0 to 13 months, with a median of 2. The units still without a commercial date are the newest and the largest: Plaquemines LNG Phase 1 (in service December 2024); Plaquemines LNG Phase 2 (in service September 2025); Corpus Christi Liquefaction Stage 3 (in service February 2025); Golden Pass (in service April 2026). Plaquemines Phase 1 has been exporting since December 2024, 18 months before the file's June 2026 release, without a commercial service date. A reader should not equate exports with commercial service, which is why the capacity tables above include commissioning units explicitly.

The best month against nameplate

For the six terminals whose train count has not changed since 2022, the record month can be set beside listed capacity. The EIA's monthly export series gives the volume; dividing by days in the month gives a rate.

Only Sabine Pass, at 100.3% in December 2023, and Freeport, at 96.6%, sit near their listed peak. Cameron ran at 114% in December 2025, Calcasieu Pass at 104%, Elba Island at 122% and Cove Point at 127%. That does not mean the plants broke their limits: the file's notes say the Bcf/d capacities of Cameron, Calcasieu Pass and the newer plants were calculated from tonnes with a conversion factor. What the comparison shows is that listed nameplate is a planning number, and measured output on a good month can run past it. Best-month rates are also not annual rates; most months run lower.

Who grew in 2024, 2025 and 2026

Of the nine, Plaquemines (+1.29 Bcf/d), Corpus Christi (+0.66 Bcf/d), Sabine Pass (+0.15 Bcf/d), Golden Pass (+0.08 Bcf/d) grew the most from the 2025 rate to the January to July 2026 rate. Two terminals shipped less in 2025 than in 2023: Elba Island, down 16%, and Sabine Pass, down 0.8%, which is effectively flat. The mix of who grew changes who benefits from a given price spread; it does not change the total, which is set by the pipeline connections and the plants.

How fast the new plants ramped

Two terminals show what a start-up looks like in the monthly export data. Plaquemines shipped its first commercial-scale cargoes in December 2024; Golden Pass began in April 2026.

Plaquemines passed 1 Bcf/d in February 2025, 2 months after its first cargoes, and reached its highest month, 3.82 Bcf/d, in March 2026. The EIA's September 2026 note says the terminal is exporting at full capacity. The listed peak for its two phases is 3.85 Bcf/d, and the best month was 99% of it. Golden Pass exported 3,619, 3,464 and 3,449 million cubic feet in April, May and June 2026, under 0.2 Bcf/d in each month, then 6,772 in July (0.22 Bcf/d), double the June figure as Train 1 moved beyond commissioning.

Corpus Christi's stage-by-stage lift

Corpus Christi shows the other pattern: an existing plant adding trains. Its monthly exports ran between 50,129 and 70,072 million cubic feet from January 2024 through September 2025, a rate of 1.7 to 2.4 Bcf/d, against listed peak capacity of 2.40 Bcf/d for the three original trains. From October 2025 the series steps up, reaching 97,129 million cubic feet (3.13 Bcf/d) in July 2026, its highest month, as Stage 3 trains came on. The EIA's September 1, 2026 note says Stage 3 was then exporting from six of its seven trains.

What this guide leaves out

Terminal data show supply capacity, not demand or margin. They do not include shipping, the cargo contracts that decide who owns each export, or the price spread that makes a cargo worth sending; the Henry Hub explainer covers the US price side. The export series count volumes at the point of exit, which is where a cargo leaves, not where it was produced. The EIA's capacity file covers large-scale facilities; small-scale and truck-based liquefaction, which the monthly data capture in the remainder of Table 1, is outside it. Finally, a Bcf/d of exports is a Bcf/d of demand for US gas, and its effect on the domestic price depends on storage, weather and production at the time, as the storage report guide explains. This page does not forecast either.

Where the gas went in 2026

The EIA's September 1, 2026 note links the growth to a destination shift. Global LNG prices stayed high through the first half, in part because disruptions to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz cut off about 20 percent of global LNG supplies, mostly from Qatar, and exports to Asia roughly doubled. Exports to Europe rose 0.1 Bcf/d (1 percent) and to Asia 2.3 Bcf/d (108 percent) against the first half of 2025; exports to Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa rose 0.8 Bcf/d (46 percent). The five largest destinations were Egypt at 1.7 Bcf/d, the Netherlands at 1.7, Italy at 1.4, France at 1.2 and the United Kingdom at 1.1. For the price mechanics behind those flows see the Henry Hub, TTF and Japan LNG guide and for the strait itself the Strait of Hormuz guide.

What is being built, and when

The EIA lists 15 units under construction with a combined peak nameplate of 17.6 Bcf/d. Added to the 20.2 Bcf/d now in commercial operation or commissioning, that would take listed capacity to 37.7 Bcf/d. The start dates are the sponsors' and cluster in the late 2020s.

The file's own footnotes show how fluid the dates are. DOE extended Woodside Louisiana LNG's export commencement deadline from May 2, 2026 to December 31, 2029 on December 16, 2025. Rio Grande LNG asked on February 27, 2026 to move its deadline from February 10, 2027 to September 30, 2027. And DOE gave Delfin a two-year extension of its non-FTA deadline to June 1, 2031. Separately, the file lists 8 approved projects not yet under construction, among them Lake Charles, Alaska LNG, a Woodside Louisiana second phase and additional trains at Cameron and Freeport, with proposed design capacity of 10.9 Bcf/d. Approval, final investment, construction and operation are four different events, and the sums above treat only the third as a schedule.

Data and sources: EIA, U.S. Liquefaction Capacity File (2026 Q2 release; sources FERC, DOE, company websites and trade press), checked October 23, 2026. EIA, Natural Gas Monthly, liquefied natural gas exports by point of exit and total (N9133US2), from the EIA natural gas bulk data file, checked October 23, 2026. EIA, Today in Energy, September 1, 2026 (first-half 2026 exports, destinations, Plaquemines, Corpus Christi Stage 3 and Golden Pass), checked October 23, 2026. Rates, shares, sums, ratios and the grouping by year are this page's arithmetic. Capacity figures in Bcf/d are EIA's and some are converted from million tonnes a year with EIA's standard factor.