Secretary Chris Wright toured Cheniere Energy Corpus Christi, celebrating liquid natural gas growth and signing an order for further expansion.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited the Coastal Bend on Monday, meeting with workers and leaders at Cheniere Energy Corpus Christi to discuss the future of Texas’ energy sector and mark a decade of liquefied natural gas exports.

Secretary Wright toured the company’s facility in Gregory before addressing dozens of employees and executives. His visit celebrated ten years of LNG exports from the Cheniere site, and looked ahead to what he described as a booming chapter for U.S. energy.

“Huge future of America is to continue to grow our status as the energy superpower of the world,” Wright said.

Wright said he sees strong growth potential in the Corpus Christi region.

“I think energy will be a growing industry and places like Corpus Christi that’ve been fantastic business environments for large-scale industry, I think the future is bright,” he said. “You see all the construction cranes here, Cheniere is going to grow. You’re going to see a lot of businesses grow.”

At the end of his remarks, Wright signed an order authorizing Cheniere to continue its expansion at the site.

“This is the authorization for Cheniere at this facility right here to use trains eight and nine, build trains eight and nine, and now Cheniere has the authority to sell that to all the countries in the world,” Wright said.

Cheniere Energy CEO Jack Fusco joined the secretary on the podium.

“We’ve had somewhere between three thousand and five thousand construction workers at this site for the last twelve years. And with Secretary Wright just signing the order for trains eight and nine, that’s going to take us through 2028,” Fusco said.

Cheniere is the largest producer of LNG in the United States, and Fusco said the expansion means more exports heading overseas especially to Europe.

“If you’re a construction worker in Corpus, you’re having to travel everywhere for work. You do the project for a couple of years and you have to move, you have to leave your family. When you come here to work for Cheniere and Bechtel, you’re good for decades,” Fusco said.

He added that even more growth may be on the way.

“We filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month for another expansion here,” Fusco said. “Job security, that’s what it means. So we’re here to stay.”