Freeport LNG plant to resume service in Texas on Thursday, LSEG data indicates
LSEG data indicated that the U.S. liquefied gas (LNG), company Freeport LNG, was on schedule to resume service at its Texas export plant on Thursday. The facility had been shut down on Wednesday.
Freeport is one the most watched U.S. export LNG plants in the World because of its history of changing global gas prices every time it restarts or shuts down.
However, energy traders noted that the gas prices in other parts of the world did not change much on Wednesday, because Freeport had stated it was "actively reestablishing its operations." Traders said that this convinced the market that the outage would only last a short time.
Freeport announced that it had closed the plant on Wednesday after an unexpected activation of a fire suppression system during routine maintenance in the control room for the pretreatment facility.
In an email sent on Thursday, a company spokesperson said: "We are working to safely resume our operations."
According to LSEG, the amount of gas flowing into Freeport's 2.1 billion cubic feet per day plant (bcfd), which had fallen to zero on Wednesday, was expected to reach 1.0 bcfd by Thursday. This compares to an average of 2.1 billion cubic feet per day over the last month.
A billion cubic feet of natural gas can supply five million U.S. households for one day.
Freeport filed a document with Texas environmental regulators Wednesday stating that it was urgent to shut down the three liquefaction train at the plant due to a disruption in the gas supply from the facility for pretreatment.
Freeport is now expected to bring in more gas. The LNG feedgas for the seven major U.S. export LNG plants, including Freeport was on track to hit 12.1 bcfd Thursday, up from an all-time low of 11.2bcfd Wednesday.
This compares to an average of 12.8 Bcfd for August so far, 11.9 Bcfd for July and a record monthly high of 14.7 Bcfd set in December 2023. (Reporting and editing by David Goodman, David Holmes and Scott DiSavino)
(source: Reuters)
