Feed gas flows to Freeport LNG early Monday had returned to nearly 80% of pipeline capacity following a brief slip from another operational issue late last week.
Freeport LNG Development LP reported a trip of Train 2 Thursday that temporarily halted liquefied natural gas production for about 16 hours. Freeport staff told the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality the issue was related to a surge valve on a propane compressor.
The company reported flaring ended by mid-Friday morning and the train was restarted. Nominations to the LNG facility returned to 78% of capacity by the Friday evening cycle, according to Wood Mackenzie pipeline data.
Nominations held near that level through the weekend as ships arrived and departed from the facility carrying shipments to Asia and Europe, according to tracking data.
At least five cargoes (0.35 million metric tons) had been loaded at Freeport over the past seven days, marking the highest export volumes since the last week of December, according to Kpler data.
The outage was the first slip in feed gas flows to the Texas plant since a mid-May trip of Train 3, also attributed to the same compressor issue.
The recent blips in production at the facility have kept a demand-hungry natural gas market on its toes after feed gas flows were near zero for almost three weeks in April. 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.
The Freeport facility is able to produce about 2 Bcf/d from three trains. A previous explosion at the plant stopped production for around nine months in 2022.
Freeport confirmed late last month that all repairs had been completed, and contractors were in the final stages of completing a debottlenecking project that would increase spot cargo capacity.
Wood Mackenzie forecast LNG demand from June 3-9 at 12.9 Bcf/d, slightly down from the last seven day period because of a drop in Sabine Pass LNG nominations.
