Page 11 - GLNG Week 04 2023

GLNG AMERICAS GLNG

Freeport completes repairs and

requests to restart facility

US FREEPORT LNG revealed on January 23 that Rigzone that “Freeport LNG’s restart will sup-
repairs at its plant located on Quintana Island port US LNG exports this year, but the timing
Freeport LNG was a in Texas have been completed with the US’s sec- remains uncertain”, adding that a full ramp-up
major supplier to the ond-largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter was not likely until mid-year.
European market. requesting for permission from American regu- Meanwhile, on January 11, Freeport LNG
lators to begin steps towards restarting the facil- stated to Oilprice.com that there was “no change
ity. The export terminal has been offline since an to our restart timeline. We are still targeting the
explosion and subsequent fire erupted on June 8. second half of this month for the safe, initial
A filing sent to the US Federal Energy Regula- restart of our liquefaction facility, pending reg-
tory Commission (FERC) has asked for approval ulatory approvals.”
to begin cool-down of the Loop 1 transfer pip- Previously, Freeport LNG had stated that
ing and reinstate the terminal’s boil-off gas man- repair and improvement work at the facility
agement compressors and associated piping, would be completed in December, but was
a procedure that would need about 11 days to forced to readjust its timeline to build in time for
complete. any potential delays in regulatory approval.
If granted, it would mark a first step towards Consequently, the facility’s restart date has
bringing the facility back to full operations. shifted from mid-November to late January,
When operating normally, the facility has a according to the company.
liquefaction capacity of over 15mn tonnes per According to data from Kpler, at least four
year (tpy), equivalent to roughly 2.2bn cubic feet LNG vessels have been chartered by BP, SK
(62.3mn cubic metres) per day of gas. Group and German utility RWE with Freeport
The facility has been prohibited by FERC LNG listed as the destination, with estimated
from restarting production until the comple- arrivals at the end of January.
tion of an extensive safety review and approval Prior to being taken offline, Freeport had
granted of the resulting changes. been supplying about 15% of US LNG exports.
Widespread speculation has swirled around Natural gas prices rebounded by 10% on Jan-
Freeport’s restart date. On January 20, Rys- uary 23 following the Freeport news, after plung-
tad Energy vice president Emily McClain told ing more than 50% over the past four weeks. ™

Week 04 27•January•2023 www. NEWSBASE .com P11