Freeport LNG export plant in Texas on track to take in more natgas on Monday after outage

The Freeport LNG facility in Texas.

U.S. liquefied natural gas company Freeport LNG’s export plant in Texas was on track to take in more natural gas on Monday in a sign that a liquefaction train that shut on Saturday was likely back in service, according to data from financial firm LSEG and a company filing with state environmental regulators.

Freeport is one of the world’s most closely-watched LNG export plants because starts and stops of its operations often cause price swings in global gas markets.

When flows to Freeport drop, gas prices in the United States usually decline due to lower 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 from the plant.

Futures prices in the U.S. NGc1 were on track to rise to a six-week high on Monday due to numerous factors, including the expected increase in gas flows to Freeport. Prices in Europe TRNLTTFMc1, however, were up about 3% for reasons not necessarily related to the plant. NGA/NG/EU

Freeport told Texas environmental regulators on Sunday that one of three liquefaction trains at the plant, Train 1, shut on Saturday due to a problem with a compressor system.

Officials at Freeport had no comment on the latest outage.

Freeport has had numerous problems with compressor systems at the plant over the past month or so with liquefaction trains shutting five times in August due to such issues, according to company filings with regulators.

LSEG said the amount of gas flowing to Freeport was on track to reach 1.9 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Monday, up from 1.8 bcfd on Sunday and a two-week low of 1.4 bcfd on Saturday. That compares with an average of 1.8 bcfd over the prior seven days.

The three liquefaction trains at Freeport are capable of turning about 2.1 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 Kirsten Donovan)