Cheniere Partners has given the green light for the start of construction at the Sabine Pass LNG export project on the Texas-Louisiana border.

The developer sold $167 million worth of shares to parent company Cheniere Energy, allowing wholly-owned subsidiary Sabine Pass Liquefaction to issue a limited notice to proceed to engineering, procurement and construction contractor Bechtel.

Site preparation can now kick off while Bechtel continues with detailed engineering and limited procurement activities.

A full notice is expected when the project’s debt financing arrangements, which were launched over the past two weeks, are completed.

Cheniere Energy’s share deal represents an initial third of the 33.3