First tanker in 11 days arrives at troubled Freeport LNG export plant
HOUSTON, April 20 (Reuters) - The first liquefied natural gas tanker to dock at Freeport LNG’s gas liquefaction plant in 11 days arrived on Saturday, vessel tracking data from financial firm LSEG showed.
Saturday’s arrival of tanker BW Pavilion Leeara signaled a potential restart in coming days of one of the facility three gas-processing trains. Freeport LNG has suffered a series of outages and all units recently were out of service for maintenance, reducing U.S. LNG exports this year.
Pipeline gas flows to the Quintana, Texas, export plant inched up on Thursday to .3 billion cubic feet after running at near-zero for more than a week. Normal flow is about 2.2 billion to 2.4 billion cubic feet per day.
A Freeport LNG spokesperson declined to comment.
The last LNG tanker to dock at the plant was LNG Schneeweisschen on April 9, shortly before a unit tripped offline on April 9, according to an emissions report the company filed with Texas environmental regulators.
(Reporting by Gary McWilliams)
Related Knowledge Center: Liquefied natural gas
Driven by plentiful natural gas produced from shale plays, the United States began exporting liquefied natural gas in 2016 when the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana opened and shipped its first cargo. Since then, additional capacity, or trains, have been added to Sabine Pass, and terminals have become operational in Cameron Parish, La.; Hackberry, La.; Cove Point, Md.; and Corpus Christi, Texas. The Energy Information Administration projects that U.S. LNG export capacity will reach 8.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by the end of 2019, making it the third largest in the world, behind Australia and Qatar. The tariff war with China has the potential to impact some final investment decisions for additional terminals in the coming months.