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March 9 (Reuters) - The amount of natural gas flowing to
U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) company Freeport LNG's export
plant in Texas was on track to rise on Wednesday and Thursday
following a drop on Tuesday after the plant exited an
eight-month outage in February.
Gas flows to the plant were on track to rise to 0.8 billion
cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Wednesday and Thursday after
dropping to 0.2 bcfd on Tuesday, according to data provider
Refinitiv.
The plant shut after a fire in June 2022 and gas flows to
the facility peaked at about 1.7 bcfd on March 5, the Refinitiv
Eikon data showed.
When operating at full power, Freeport LNG, the
second-biggest U.S. LNG export plant, can turn about 2.1 bcfd of
gas into LNG for export.
One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply about five
million U.S. homes for a day.
Global demand for U.S. LNG increased after countries around
the world slowed purchases of Russian energy and imposed
sanctions on Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine in February
2022.
The combination of those sanctions and the Freeport LNG
plant shutdown helped drive gas prices to record highs in Europe and Asia during summer 2022.
U.S. regulators approved the restart of two of Freeport
LNG's three liquefaction trains (Trains 2 and 3) in February and
the third train (Train 1) on Wednesday. Liquefaction trains turn
gas into LNG.
Total gas flows to all seven of the big U.S. LNG export
plants rose to 13.2 bcfd so far in March from 12.8 bcfd in
February. That would top the monthly record of 12.9 bcfd in
March 2022, before the Freeport LNG facility shut.
The seven big U.S. LNG export plants, including Freeport
LNG, can turn about 13.8 bcfd of gas into LNG.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Messaging: scott.disavino.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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