The US Department of Energy (DOE) has given final approval to two Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facilities to begin exporting.

The permits were given to Sempra Energy’s Cameron LNG facility in Louisiana and Carib Energy’s small-scale export project in Florida.

The former facility is authorised to export LNG up to the equivalent of 1.7 billion standard cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of natural gas for a period of 20 years and the latter up to 0.04 bcf/d for the same period.

Under the new approval process in the US, companies complete environmental reviews before submitting an application to the US DOE.

It said: “The Department considered the economic, energy security and environmental impacts and determined that exports was not inconsistent with the public interest.”

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects domestic natural gas production to increase, forecasting a record production rate of 74.56 bcf/d this year.