Published: December 2, 2025 |

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TotalEnergies, TES, Osaka Gas, Toho Gas, and ITOCHU have signed a joint development and operating agreement, granting the Japanese companies a combined 33.3 percent stake in the Live Oak project.

The Live Oak project is a large-scale facility to produce electric natural gas (e-NG) also known as e-methane, initiated by TotalEnergies and TES and currently under development in Nebraska. Following the agreement, TotalEnergies and TES will each maintain a 33.35 percent stake in the project.

The partners are now preparing the front-end engineering design (FEED) phase, targeting a capacity of approximately 250 MW of electrolysis and 75 ktpa of methanation. The project, subject to a final investment decision in 2027, is scheduled to begin commercial operations by 2030, with plans to export e-NG to Japan. Osaka Gas and Toho Gas will be the primary offtakers. This project helps the Japanese gas majors in achieving their goal of injecting 1 percent carbon neutral gas (such as e-NG) into the gas grid by 2030.

The agreement builds on the strategic partnership established between TotalEnergies and TES in 2023 to pioneer at scale production of e-NG. The Live Oak project will leverage Nebraska’s abundant biogenic CO₂ resources, captured from bioethanol plants, and the growing renewable power generation capacity in the United States.

The participation of Osaka Gas, Toho Gas, and ITOCHU (as a coordinator of Japanese companies), underscores their commitment to decarbonization with the adoption of e-NG and positions Live Oak as the leading project for carbon-neutral gas production for Japan.

e-NG is a synthetic gas produced from renewable hydrogen and CO₂. Chemically identical to conventional natural gas, e-NG can be seamlessly integrated into existing LNG infrastructure—liquefaction, transport, regasification, and distribution — without any alterations to consumer equipment.

TotalEnergies is a global integrated energy company that produces and markets energies: oil and biofuels, natural gas and green gases, renewables and electricity. Their more than 100,000 employees are committed to provide as many people as possible with energy that is more reliable, more affordable, and more sustainable. Active in about 120 countries. TotalEnergies places sustainability at the heart of its strategy, its projects and its operations. TotalEnergies places sustainability at the heart of its strategy, its projects and its operations. TotalEnergies is the world’s third largest LNG player with a global portfolio of 40 Mt/y in 2024 thanks to its interests in liquefaction plants in all geographies. The company benefits from an integrated position across the LNG value chain, including production, transportation, access to more than 20 Mt/y of regasification capacity in Europe, trading, and LNG bunkering. TotalEnergies’ ambition is to increase the share of natural gas in its sales mix to close to 50 percent by 2030. TotalEnergies is deploying its integrated energy model across the United States, where it has been active since 1957. Since 2022, TotalEnergies has invested nearly $11 billion in the U.S. to accelerate development in oil, LNG, and low carbon electricity.

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