Natural gas flowing to Freeport LNG’s export plant in Texas was on track to hit a 16-week high on Thursday, LSEG data showed, in what energy traders said was a sign it could return to full power soon.
The startup and shutdown of Freeport and other U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants often has a major impact on global gas prices.
U.S. gas futures at the Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana have soared by around 38% over the past nine days due in part to the increase in feedgas from Freeport after it exited an outage in late April.
U.S. gas futures were trading at a 14-week high of $2.23 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on Thursday.
With Freeport back in service, total feedgas flowing to the seven big U.S. LNG export plants rose to 12.4 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in May, up from an average of 11.9 bcfd in April, LSEG data shows. That compares with a monthly record of 14.7 bcfd in December.
The amount of gas flowing to the 2.1-bcfd Freeport plant was on track to rise to 1.7 bcfd, the most since Jan. 14. That is up from an average of 1.3 bcfd over the past week and 0.4 bcfd in April.
Energy traders said it looked like all three trains at the Freeport plant were operating – at least at low levels – due to the amount of feedgas currently flowing to it.
Officials at Freeport had no comment on the increase in feedgas.
Each of the plant’s three liquefaction trains can turn about 0.7 bcfd of gas into LNG.
One billion cubic feet is enough gas to supply about 5 million U.S. homes for a day.
In late March, Freeport said it expected two of the three liquefaction trains, Trains 1 and 2, to remain shut until May for inspections and repairs, while Train 3 was operating.
However, Train 3 shut, at least temporarily, around April 11.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Alexander Smith)