The first of 10 modules at the Kinder Morgan-operated Elba Island liquefied natural gas export facility in the US state of Georgia is ready to be placed in commercial service, the project's developers said Monday.

In a letter filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Elba Island LNG said testing had shown the balance of plant (BOP), terminal upgrade (TU) and movable modular liquefaction system No. 1 (MMLS #1) facilities could be operated safely.

"Additionally, companies confirm that the rehabilitation and restoration of the right-of-way and other areas affected by the project are proceeding satisfactorily and that no environmental problem areas or noncompliance issues were identified by the commission staff during their inspection in July," according to the letter, which requests clearance to begin commercial service from MMLS #1 on Monday.

The request comes as US LNG production is ramping up rapidly. Elba Island LNG may be the fifth LNG export facility to come online in the Lower 48 states in the US and would be the second on the East Coast.

Cheniere's Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi terminals, along with the Sempra-led Cameron LNG, lie on the Gulf Coast. Dominion's Cove Point project, in the state of Maryland, was the first on the east coast to come online.

The first train at the privately owned Freeport LNG facility in Texas is in the commissioning phase and is also expected to be in service soon.

The milestone at Elba comes after a range of delays on the project. The first liquefaction unit for the 2.5 million-tonnes-per-annum project had been expected to be in commercial service in late April. The other nine modules were scheduled to come online sequentially, with one planned to start up each month.

But that schedule was delayed because of problems during the commissioning process, postponing the in-service date further. That came after the project had already been previously pushed back by a total of about six months because of construction delays and problems assembling the facility's liquefaction modules.

Kinder Morgan owns a 51% interest in the facility, with funds managed by EIG Global Energy Partners holding the remaining 49%. The terminal will source feedstock from Kinder Morgan's Elba Express pipeline. The pipeline provides connectivity to the Williams-operated Transco pipeline as well as Kinder Morgan's Southern Natural Gas pipeline.

Shell owns a 100% capacity stake in the project.