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

U.S. liquefied natural gas company Freeport LNG's export plant in Texas was on track to take in more natural gas on Thursday, a sign that a liquefaction train that shut on Wednesday 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. NG1! eased about 1% on Wednesday due in part to the Freeport unit outage. Prices in Europe (TRNLTTFMc1), however, were flat for reasons not necessarily related to the plant.

Freeport told Texas environmental regulators that one of the plant's three liquefaction trains, Train 2, shut on Wednesday due to a problem with a compressor system.

Officials at Freeport had no comment on the latest outage.

LSEG said the amount of gas flowing to Freeport was on track to reach 1.9 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Thursday, up from 1.2 bcfd on Wednesday and an average of 1.8 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.