Page 9 - GLNG Week 08 2023

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Freeport LNG receives approval for

partial restart of two units

US THE US’s second-largest liquefied natural gas denied by investigators, who demanded more
(LNG) export facility received approval on Feb- information about operations and staffing.
The US terminal, ruary 21 from the Federal Energy Regulatory A review revealed that the explosion at the
previously a bigger Commission (FERC) to partially restart oper- facility was the result of inadequate operating
supplier for Europe, ations after being idled since an explosion and and testing procedures, operator fatigue, as
secured approval fire in June. well as other shortcomings. Freeport LNG has
for partial restart on Freeport LNG received the go-ahead from responded by increasing employee numbers by
February 21. regulators for the partial restart of two of the 30%.
three gas-liquefaction units, two storage tanks The US would have surpassed Australia as the
and a single tanker berth, according to Reuters. world’s largest LNG exporter in 2022 if the Quin-
However, the restart of the third liquefaction tana Island LNG terminal had not been shut
unit will require additional permission FERC down by the fire. The facility produces around
said. It is now expected to be several weeks 15mn tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG exported to
before the terminal can begin operating at its full countries in Europe and Asia, where demand for
capacity of 2bn cubic feet (56.6mn cubic metres) the super-chilled fuel is rising.
per day. Meanwhile, Freeport LNG revealed in a The outage also caused LNG prices to spike
statement that a third storage tank and second last summer with futures prices in Europe climb-
tanker berth will not be available before May. ing to $60 mmBtu in July, while the company’s
The announcement marks a key step forward major clients including Japan’s JERA and Osaka
for Freeport LNG, which had initially sought to Gas suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in
resume partial operations last October but was losses. ™

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