Freeport LNG plant on its way back to full production, LSEG data show

By Curtis Williams

HOUSTON, March 9 (Reuters) - The Freeport LNG plant in Texas is on its way back to full production on Monday following an outage on Sunday, the company said.

"Freeport LNG’s liquefaction operations are currently in the process of ramping up production rates," the company told Reuters on Monday.

Freeport, the third largest LNG producer in the U.S., was pulling 1.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas to be converted into LNG on Monday, LSEG data showed. The plant can handle around 2 bcfd of gas and on Sunday was using just over 600 million cubic feet.

"During operation of Freeport LNG's Pretreatment Facility, Trains 1, 2, and 3 were quickly taken offline due to an issue with the facility utility system," the company said on Sunday in a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Natural gas traded at a three-year high of $21 per mmBtu at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility TRNLTTFMc1 benchmark in Europe and near a two-year high of around $16 at the Japan-Korea Marker JKMc1 benchmark in Asia.

The U.S. is the largest exporter of LNG in the world and has the most capacity to help cover lost production from Qatar amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.