Liquefied natural gas (LNG) company Cheniere Energy Inc. said it planned to make a final investment decision to build the third liquefaction train at its Corpus Christi LNG export facility in Texas in the first half of 2018.

Cheniere said its Cheniere Corpus Christi Holdings LLC subsidiary engaged financial institutions to arrange up to $6.4 billion of credit facilities. The unit already has about $4.6 billion of existing credit facilities.

Cheniere said it will use the credit facilities to fund a portion of the costs of developing, constructing and placing into service three 0.7 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) liquefaction trains and a related pipeline at its Corpus Christi LNG export facility, among other things.

The company is already building two liquefaction trains at Corpus Christi.

Cheniere said it expects to close the amended credit facilities, proceed with a final investment decision for Train 3, and issue a notice to proceed to Bechtel, the lead contractor on the Corpus Christie project, for Train 3 in the first half of 2018.

The move should keep Cheniere at the front of the pack of companies competing to build the next generation of U.S. LNG terminals to meet potential global LNG supply shortfalls in the early 2020s, analysts have said.

Cheniere has agreed to sell LNG from Corpus Christi to units of Indonesia's state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina PT, Spanish power and gas companies Endesa SA , Iberdrola SA and Gas Natural SDG SA, Australian oil and gas company Woodside Petroleum Ltd., French power and gas company Electricite de France (EDF) SA , Portuguese power and gas company EDP Energias de Portugal SA and China's China National Petroleum Corp Ltd.