Flows of natural gas to Freeport LNG have remained at a trickle for a week, fueling market concern that possibly all three trains at the facility could be offline after a reported issue with Train 3 last week.
Nominations for natural gas to the liquefied natural gas facility had been reduced to about one-fourth of the operational capacity for more than a month as the Freeport LNG Development LP continued maintenance and repairs on all three trains, according to Wood Mackenzie pipeline data. Freeport LNG is able to produce about 2 Bcf/d at full capacity.
However, nominations to the terminal dropped further following a reported system issue on April 9 that tripped Train 3 offline for almost 15 hours. Since April 11, feed gas nominations to Freeport have been around 1% of operational capacity.
Spokesperson Heather Browne told NGI the firm didn’t have a comment about operations at this time.
Before the trip, Train 3 had recently returned to service in March after a months-long outage caused by electrical issues during extreme cold in January.
The company reported to Texas environmental regulators that staff had “managed the cooldown and restart of Train 3” after the incident, but the persistent lack of feed gas nominations has stirred speculation further issues with LNG production may be ongoing.
Wood Mackenzie’s Amir Rejvani, senior analyst, told NGI that power data also has indicated all trains at Freeport LNG are likely offline.
Meanwhile, ships continue to head toward Freeport LNG, according to Kpler data. At least one vessel is waiting in Freeport’s anchorage in the Gulf of Mexico and has indicated it plans to load as soon as Wednesday (April 17).
If the facility completes its scheduled loadings, predictive Kpler data shows Freeport could be on track to ship 0.30 million metric tons through the week. It would be the largest weekly tonnage exported since early January.
However, Rejvani said the power output to the facility and the available LNG possibly left in storage to fill those vessels means exports over the next several days seems unlikely.
“If we see a train turn on, I expect a day to a few days of testing before liquefaction starts,” Rejvani said. “Then a few days to get enough inventory to load a vessel.”
One vessel, the Uniper SE-controlled LNG Schneeweisschen, has loaded at Freeport since the trip at Train 3. It is currently headed for the Gate import terminal in the Netherlands.
An extended pause of operations at Freeport LNG could add to the squeeze on U.S. feed gas demand, as pipeline data indicates a train at Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass LNG could be down.
Scheduled compressor maintenance also is expected to begin at Corpus Christi LNG this week, potentially impacting up to 120,000 Dth in transport capacity to the terminal.
Over the last five days, U.S. feed gas demand has dropped from 11.52 million Dth on April 12 to 9.47 million Dth, according to NGI’s North America LNG Flow Tracker.
