Freeport LNG export plant in Texas on track to return to full power on Thursday, LSEG data shows

U.S. liquefied natural gas company Freeport LNG's export plant in Texas was on track to take in more natural gas on Thursday in a sign that one of its liquefaction trains exited a short-term outage on Wednesday, according to a company filing with state regulators and gas flow data from financial company LSEG.

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 U.S. usually decline due to lower demand from the export plant for the fuel. Prices in Europe, meanwhile, usually increase, due to a drop in LNG supplies available to global markets from the plant.

Prices in the U.S. and Europe, however, were both down so far on Thursday for reasons not necessarily related to Freeport.

Freeport told Texas environmental regulators that one of three liquefaction trains at the plant, Train 2, shut on August 13 due to a problem with a compressor system.

Officials at Freeport had no comment.

LSEG said the amount of gas flowing to Freeport was on track to reach 2.0 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Thursday, up from 1.6 bcfd on Wednesday. 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 2.1 bcfd of gas into LNG.

One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply about 5 million U.S. homes for a day.