The Mexican government plans to build an LNG export hub in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz to help send LNG to the European market, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced at a Tuesday news conference.

The hub, which Lopez Obrador said would cost between $4 billion and $5 billion, will be located in the port city of Coatzacoalcos and will be able to ship gas to Europe by sea, with Lopez Obrador saying his government wanted “private sector involvement” in the initiative.

LNG-focused New Fortress Energy has an agreement with Mexico for an LNG export hub further up the coast in the state of Tamaulipas.

Last week, after meeting with Lopez Obrador in Mexico City, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that Lopez Obrador “offered to step up cooperation on liquid gas," without going into any specifics. Mexico does not presently export LNG. The energy market in Europe has been in upheaval for months following Russia's invasion of Ukraine as countries seek replacements for Russian crude and gas.

Lopez Obrador has expressed support for the expanding LNG export footprint on Mexico's Pacific Coast.

Lopez Obrador has a history of what many view as overpromising with some initiatives.

This past summer, he trumpeted his recent inauguration of the Olmeca refinery in Dos Bocas, located in his home state of Tabasco, even though the project remains significantly behind schedule and sharply over budget.

Only last week, Lopez Obrador, a mercurial populist, said that Pemex International (PMI), the international sales unit of state oil giant Pemex, will soon "no longer have a reason to exist" as the country moved toward keeping its hydrocarbons at home. The Mexican president has frequently stressed that his government’s priority is "energy sovereignty" in Mexico, and has pledged that the country will stop importing fuel from abroad next year.

The past August, Canada's TC Energy struck a deal with the the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE), Mexico’s state-owned electricity utility, to develop a $4.5 billion natural gas pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico that comes ashore at Coatzacoalcos and Tabasco’s Dos Bocas.

The pipeline will connect to the coastal regions of Veracruz and Tabasco, and would be a 1.3 billion cubic feet per day, 715-kilometer (444-mile) passageway for offshore natural gas to southeast Mexico.