U.S. liquefied natural gas company Freeport LNG’s export plant in Texas was on track to take in more natural gas on Friday in a sign that one of its three liquefaction trains has returned to service after shutting on Thursday, LSEG data and regulatory filings show.
Freeport is one of the world’s most closely watched U.S. LNG export plants because changes to its operations have caused price swings in global gas markets in the past.
When flows to Freeport drop, gas prices in the U.S. usually decline owing to reduced demand for the fuel from the export plant. Prices in Europe, meanwhile, usually increase due to a drop in LNG supplies available to global markets.
Futures prices in the U.S. declined about 2% on Thursday due in part to the Freeport outage.
Prices in Europe, however, have slid to a 15-month low for reasons not associated with Freeport.
Freeport told Texas environmental regulators that Train 1 shut down on Thursday due to an issue with a compressor system.
Officials at Freeport had no comment on the outage, but noted the plant loaded its 1,000th cargo this week.
LSEG said gas flows to Freeport were on track to reach 1.9 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Friday, up from 1.3 bcfd on Thursday. That compares with an average of 1.9 bcfd over the prior seven days.
The three liquefaction trains at Freeport are capable of turning about 2.4 bcfd of gas into LNG.
One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply about five million U.S. homes for a day.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino. Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter)