Freeport LNG has confirmed that all three trains at the Texas export facility are back online after months of maintenance that limited natural gas flows to the facility.
Since earlier in the month, the market has been tracking an uptick in feed gas volumes to Freeport that could indicate a restart of production at the 2 Bcf/d capacity terminal. Flows to the liquefied natural gas export facility had previously been near zero for more than a week after multiple reported trips of Train 3 added to a cut in nominations from ongoing repairs on the other liquefaction units, according to regulatory and Wood Mackenzie pipeline data.
A Freeport spokesperson told NGI Wednesday all trains returned to service.
Feed gas nominations for Freeport LNG were at around 72% of capacity, near the highest point since mid-January. Freeport LNG also could be on track to achieve its highest monthly export total in six months.
Offtakers could take 1.26 million metric tons (mmt) from Freeport by the end of the May, according to predictive data from Kpler. More than half those cargoes could head to Asia as large buyers in Japan and South Korea look to maintain inventories.
Conversely, April marked Freeport’s lowest monthly export total since the facility restarted post-explosion last February.
Over the past month, global LNG supply outages – including at Freeport – have helped spark brief rallies in international prices as traders eye any potential risks that could tighten competition.
While coal and natural gas power plant maintenance in Japan – one of Freeport’s largest outlets this year – is expected to impact demand, outages at major terminals in Malaysia and Australia could raise spot demand, according to Rystad Energy’s Masanori Odaka, senior analyst.
The U.S. market also has been hanging on the back and forth of Freeport’s feed gas flows as traders look for any demand upside to lift U.S. natural gas prices.
Freeport’s return has been somewhat undercut this week by a drop in nominations at other Gulf Coast terminals like Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass LNG. Wood Mackenzie estimated LNG demand over the next seven days at 12.4 Bcf/d, a 0.6 Bcf/d increase over the last 30 days.
