Sept 11 (Askume) – Natural gas flows at U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants were expected to fall to a two-week low on Wednesday, according to financial firm LSEG, as energy companies prepared to access Francine, Louisiana supplies before the state’s coast was cut off to factories.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts that Francine will hit the Louisiana coast on Wednesday with maximum winds of 100 mph (161 km/h). Louisiana is home to three of the country’s seven largest LNG export plants.
Natural gas flows to the country’s LNG export plants fell to a two-week low of 11.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Wednesday from 12.8 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Tuesday, London Stock Exchange data showed. Over the past week, total feed gas volumes averaged around 13.4 bcfd.
The decline was mainly due to lower flows from Louisiana’s 2.0 bcfd Cameron LNG export plant, which fell from 1.9 bcfd on Tuesday to 0.9 bcfd on Wednesday. Feed gas shipments to Cameron averaged 2.1 bcfd over the past week.
One billion cubic feet of natural gas is enough to supply about 5 million homes per day.
Cameroon LNG officials were not immediately available to comment on the cause of the outage. Energy traders said Francine was expected to approach Cameroon.
According to Cameroon’s website, Cameroon’s LNG partners include U.S. energy company Sempra Energy (SRE.N) , Japanese groups Mitsui & Co. (8031.PA) and Mitsubishi (8058.T) , France’s Total Energies (TTEF.PA) and Japanese Instruments (9101.T) shipping company Nippon Yusen KK (NYK Line).
Other LNG plants
Two other large LNG plants are operating in Louisiana – Cheniere Energy’s (LNG.N) 4.5 bcfd Sabine Pass plant and Venture Global LNG’s 1.6 bcfd Calcasieu Pass plant.
According to LSEG data, Calcasieu is expected to draw about 1.2 bcfd of feed gas on Wednesday, down from 1.4 bcfd on Tuesday, while Sabine is expected to receive about 4.6 bcfd on Wednesday, up from 4.5 bcfd on Tuesday.
LNG plants take in more gas than they can hold because they use some of it to fuel equipment.
Officials at Cheniere and Venture Global could not immediately be reached for comment. Earlier this week, Cheniere said LNG production at Sabine remained uninterrupted as the company continued to prepare for the storm.
Meanwhile, in Texas, Freeport LNG’s 2.1 bcfd export plant was expected to pump about 1.9 bcfd of natural gas on Wednesday, down from 1.8 bcfd on Tuesday. Feed gas shipments to Freeport averaged 2.0 bcfd last week.
Freeport has previously been closed during the storm due to power outages or other storm-related damage. However, Francine is still far from land, so it is unlikely to cause power outages or other damage.
Freeport is more vulnerable to power outages than other US LNG plants because it uses electric motors rather than gas turbines to drive the liquefaction compressor.
