Tech giant Samsung is getting into gas, with word of a near-$1 billion deal to build an advanced liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant.

Samsung Engineering, South Korea’s largest engineering firm, is expected to mark its company’s first major deal in the LNG plant sector.

Reports say the firm is being contacted by Texas LNG LLC for an initial $5 million front-ending engineering design (FEED) services deal ahead of the construction of a gas export terminal in Brownsville, Texas.

The terminal will be able to process up to 2 million tons of LNG per year from the US domestic natural gas system.

The company says engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) will fire up in the second half of 2016, and is slated for completion in 2019.

Total costs are expected to be in excess of $1 billion.

Samsung Engineering spokesperson Edward Kang has told reporters that the company hopes the project will see its foot in the door of the flourishing LNG sector.

“This project will enable us to crack into a market that had only few players,” said Kang.

”This is a high-end market we have we have been trying to get into for a very long time.”

Samsung Engineering will merge with Samsung Heavy Industries this year in a move expected to further boost its expansion into the LNG market.

Samsung Heavy chief financial officer Chun Tae Heung has indicated that the merger will marry Samsung Engineering’s project management history with Samsung Heavy’s offshore LNG carrier construction experience.

The Heavy Industries arm is currently involved in huge the Prelude FLNG for Royal Dutch- the largest offshore facility ever built and the world’s first to include a floating liquefied natural gas platform.

It is also working on a US$620 million order for the construction of three LNG carriers, each with the capacity to hold 174,000 cubic metres of US shale LNG en route to Asian markets.