Freeport LNG Development LP is gearing up to expand its output of cargoes to the spot market after completing an expansion project during extended maintenance.
Freeport management recently confirmed that all three trains at the Texas facility are back online after a series of mechanical issues and damage from a winter storm earlier in the year. The return of the production at the terminal near its 15 million metric tons/year (mmty) design capacity has helped ease global supply pressure and stoked domestic prices with added feed gas demand.
However, crews working at the facility since maintenance began in January have also been completing another project simultaneously. In March, Freeport CEO Michael Smith told NGI that a debottlenecking project had begun to push overall capacity to 16.5 mmty.
Freeport spokesperson Heather Browne told NGI Thursday that “the vast majority of the work related to our debottlenecking project” has been completed. The firm is “working to implement the benefits of those efforts.”
The added capacity was expected to be operational by the end of the month. However, a full ramp-up of extra spot volumes might not happen until after the summer months due to the impact of typically searing Texas heat on the liquefaction process.
Since the facility first came online in 2019, Freeport has marketed about 0.37 mmty of liquefied natural gas from the facility each year, according to data from Kpler. However, the firm hasn’t traded any of its spot cargoes since 2023, when the facility was impacted by an explosion.
In the meantime, with the restart of all three trains, offtakers could take 1.26 mmt from Freeport by the end of the month, according to predictive data from Kpler. That could mark the largest number of cargoes exported since December.
More than half those cargoes could head to Asia, as large buyers in Japan and South Korea look to maintain inventories.
