The U.S. shale revolution has spurred construction of many types—remote-site roads, natural-gas processing plants, pipelines, storage-tank farms and petrochemical projects, among them—but few, if any, projects are as challenging to develop, permit, finance and build as the multibillion-dollar plans to liquefy natural gas and load the resulting LNG for shipment overseas.

In late October, construction began on the second of more than a dozen proposed liquefied-natural-gas export terminals. When its three gas-liquefaction "trains" are completed and begin commercial operation in 2018, the $10-billion Cameron LNG facility in Hackberry, La., will be capable of super-cooling about 1.7 billion cu ft of natural gas a day into LNG, a dense, energy-packed liquid that—after shipment to Japanese and other buyers—will be re-gasified for use by electric utilities and other natural-gas consumers.