U.S. liquefied natural gas company Freeport LNG said all three trains at its LNG export plant in Texas experienced a trip due to an interruption of feed gas to the facility, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday.
“The plant operators managed the cooldown and restarts of train 1, train 2, and train 3 as efficiently as possible to minimize flaring,” the filing said.
Freeport’s three trains are capable of turning about 2.4 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas into LNG. One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply about five million U.S. homes for a day.
Freeport did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Freeport is one of the most closely watched U.S. LNG export facilities because fluctuations in its operations have the potential to cause swings in global gas prices.
On Wednesday, front-month gas futures for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange were down 3.8% at $4.242 per million British thermal units, after hitting their highest level since December 11 at $4.593 earlier in the session.
Before news of the train shutdown, gas flows to Freeport were on track to remain around 1.1 bcfd on Tuesday, according to LSEG data.
Average gas flows to the eight large U.S. LNG export plants have risen to 18.4 bcfd so far this month, up from a monthly record high of 18.2 bcfd in November.
(Reporting by Anjana Anil in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese)