US Freeport LNG to partially restart this week

(Montel) The Freeport LNG plant, the second largest in the US, will begin a phased restart this week, following damage caused by Hurricane Beryl earlier this month, the operator said late on Wednesday.

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The 15m tonnes/year (20bcm/year) facility halted operations on 7 July as a precaution due to the arrival of the hurricane which made landfall in Texas the next day. “We are safely progressing our efforts towards the phased restart of our liquefaction operations and anticipate restarting the first train this week,” Freeport spokeswoman Heather Browne told Montel on Wednesday. She was referring to one of three production units, each with a 5m tonnes capacity per annum.

The company plans to restart its other two trains shortly after the first, Browne said. Air coolersWorkers are completing initial repairs to air coolers damaged when the storm passed. “Production levels after restart will be at reduced rates for a period of time as we continue repairs while operating the facility,” Browne said. “Production will steadily ramp up to full rates as these repairs are completed.”

Freeport exported around 1.7m tonnes of the chilled fuel to Europe – excluding Turkey – in the first half of the year, with 0.44m tonnes shipped across the Atlantic in June, according to Kpler vessel-tracking data.

The US is Europe’s largest supplier of LNG, providing nearly half – or 24m tonnes – of the region’s 52m tonnes of imports as of July 12, the data showed.

In 2020, Cameron LNG’s 13.5m tonnes/year operations in the US Gulf were shut down for nearly two months in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura, while in 2021, Hurricane Nicholas briefly took all three of Freeport LNG’s trains offline.