HOUSTON, March 12 (Reuters) -

Top U.S. liquefied natural gas producer Cheniere

plans on using electricity from the Texas grid at some of its

LNG facilities to reduce emissions, Robert Fee, the company's

senior vice president of international affairs and climate, said

on Wednesday.

Fee, speaking at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston,

added that the company was aware that doing so risks reducing

reliability of its operations by placing facilities at the mercy

of the grid.

Combined cycle gas turbines tend to be used in LNG plants to

ensure there is sufficient reliable power. But using them can

lead to higher facility emissions of greenhouse gases and other

pollutants.

Reducing emissions from the LNG supply chain is

important to the industry in part because big markets like the

European Union are implementing emissions standards for their

imports.

"Our Stage 3 facility is going to be electric-driven," said

Fee, referring to its expansion project at the Corpus Christi

terminal in Texas.

Cheniere produced the first LNG at the 10 million metric

tonnes per annum (MTPA) Stage 3 plant in December, but the

facility remains under construction.

Cheniere has

struggled to meet

federal emissions limits for hazardous emissions from its

existing gas-driven turbines at the Corpus Christi LNG terminal

in the past, according to Reuters reporting.

Cheniere rival Freeport LNG, in contrast, operates a

terminal in Texas that is totally electric-driven, but the

second-largest U.S. LNG facility has been

offline

more any other plant in the country, according to LSEG

data.

Cheniere's Fee said the company was confident that it

could rely on the Texas grid to run the Stage 3 project.

He, however, added that the use of electric grids will

not necessarily reduce the overall carbon footprint of LNG

unless the electricity was generated from low-carbon sources.

The U.S. is the world's largest exporter of LNG and

production of superchilled gas from Cheniere's Stage 3 and

Venture Global's Plaquemines plants

is expected to keep the U.S. as the top exporter of LNG in

2025.