Freeport LNG export facility in Texas returns to service on Monday according to LSEG data
Freeport LNG, a U.S. liquefied gas company, had its Texas export plant take on more natural gases on Monday. This was a sign the plant had recovered from an outage that occurred over the weekend.
Freeport LNG is one of the most closely monitored LNG export facilities in the world, as the start and end of its operations can cause price fluctuations on global gas markets.
Gas prices in the U.S. typically drop when flows to Freeport decline due to a lower demand for fuel from the export facility. Prices in Europe are usually higher due to the drop in LNG supply available from the plant to global markets.
Freeport is not the only reason why prices in Europe and the U.S. have been down on Monday.
Freeport informed Texas environmental regulators on August 3 that the three liquefaction train at its plant had been shut down due to an interruption in power supply.
Freeport LNG is more vulnerable to power outages because it relies on electric motors rather than gas turbines for the liquefaction compression.
Freeport officials had no comments to make.
Freeport reported a number issues with regulators last week.
The compressor system at the plant caused problems to shut down the liquefaction trains 1 on July 26 and 27.
All three liquefaction train shut down on July 30 due to an interruption in power supply.
The compressor system malfunctioned on July 31 and caused the liquefaction 1 train to shut down again.
LSEG reported that the amount of natural gas flowing into Freeport is on track to hit 2.0 billion cubic foot per day (bcfd), up from 1.6 bcfd Sunday, 0.4 bcfd Saturday, and 0.1 bcfd Thursday. This compares to an average of 1.6 Bcfd for the previous seven days.
Three liquefaction plants at Freeport can convert about 2.1 billion cubic feet per day of gas to LNG.
A billion cubic feet of natural gas can supply 5 million U.S. households for one day. (Reporting and editing by Jane Merriman, David Holmes, and Scott DiSavino)
(source: Reuters)
