The company, which plans to immediately begin construction on the project, said it had binding 20-year sale and purchase agreements with two leading oil companies - Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP.

"Until today, the commission hadn't approved a LNG export project in more than two years, and there have been several FERC-related greenhouse gas legal decisions in the interim...we look forward to further, timely LNG project approvals throughout 2019," said Fred Hutchison, chief executive officer of a trade group LNG Allies.

The Calcasieu Pass facility is designed to produce about 10 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG, or about 1.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of natural gas. One billion cubic feet is enough gas to fuel about 5 million US homes for a day.