LNG

Freeport LNG is continuing the restart of the Texas plant at Quintana Island on a phased basis after Hurricane Beryl damaged some plant equipment while the local Texas power company is hoping to re-connect all customers by July 19.

“We are completing initial repairs on the damage sustained to our fin-fan air-coolers in the hurricane,” said a Freeport spokesperson.

The Freeport plant is located 40 miles to the northeast of the hurricane’s landfall at Matagorda in Texas on July 8.

The company said it was restarting its first LNG Train and intended to re-start the two other liquefaction Trains shortly afterwards for output to progress to the nameplate capacity of 15 million tonnes per annum.

Reduced rates

However, output is expected to be at reduced rates at the plant that is experienced in re-starts after an explosion and fire at the facility in November 2022.  Most of 2023 was then spent carrying out repairs and having them approved after testing.

Regulatory and energy safety bodies are against quick re-starts until full safety checks have been carried out.

The Freeport plant has also had to await the lifting of port restrictions by the US Coast Coast and actions by other state bodies in the hurricane aftermath.

Power supplies across the state are expected to be 98 percent restored by July 17.

CenterPoint Energy, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is the main energy delivery company in the area responsible for electric transmission and distribution and natural gas supplies and has still to fully restore power.

CenterPoint said it had now restored power to 92 percent of impacted customers and remained on track to restore electricity to around 98 percent of impacted customers by the end of the day on Wednesday, July 17.

The company said it then expected to restore power to all customers who can receive it by Friday, July 19.

“We are grateful to our crews who have restored power to our customers at a stronger pace than we have been able to in any hurricane in our history, despite the difficult conditions,” explained Lynnae Wilson, Senior Vice President, Electric Business.

Work teams

“We continue to work around-the-clock to get our remaining customers back online,” she stated.

In addition to damaging CenterPoint's electric infrastructure, the company said that Hurricane Beryl may have caused damage to customer-owned equipment.

Specifically, customers in Texas were being asked to check their weatherhead, the point where power enters the home through an electric service drop, which is often a pipe located on the side of the residence or building.

“If the weatherhead is damaged, crews cannot safely restore service to the home until a licensed electrician has made the necessary repairs,” CentrePoint added.

The US Freeport LNG export plant on Quintana Island in Texas has announced scheduled shut-downs of its liquefaction Trains for repairs and maintenance and de-bottlenecking to  boost output in the future.

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said it was awaiting further information from the Freeport LNG plant in Texas for the process to begin for a partial re-start during November and a full ramp-up in production by March 2023.

The FERC said in a statement that it required further information to allow the facility to come back on stream in November as planned.

Freeport was shut down on June 8 due to a pipeline explosion and the company has said that it expected the plant to return to at least partial service by mid-November and for supplies of 2.1 billion cubic feet per day to be received by pipeline.

The Quintana Island facility must also follow more safety orders issued by the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

The PHMSA and the FERC have been discussing with Freeport LNG management “ongoing damage assessments, repair work plans and plans for restart” since the June 8 events.

Time for review

“FERC reiterates the need for Freeport to provide the status and schedule of implementing the findings, recommendations, and lessons learned resulting from the root cause investigation and assessments as soon as possible to allow sufficient review time,” the regulator has said.

Freeport LNG said it aimed to restore more than 85 percent of pre-fire processing capacity in November and to ramp-up the facility to 100 percent of capacity by March 2023.

“We continue to progress our work towards achieving the November restart of our liquefaction facility,” said Freeport LNG in a statement.

“That work includes completing the final repair and restoration efforts, completing required work plans and obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals required before the facility's restart,” added Freeport LNG.

The June 8 incident occurred in pipe racks that support the transfer of LNG from the facility's LNG storage tank area to the terminal's dock facilities located on the north side of the dock basin.

None of the liquefaction Trains, LNG storage tanks, dock facilities nor the LNG process areas were impacted and there were no injuries reported.

Expansion plan

Freeport LNG was founded by billionaire Michael Smith who is Chairman and Chief Executive. When the explosion occurred, Smith and his team were planning for an expansion from 15 million tonnes per annum of output from three Trains to 20 MTPA with the construction of a fourth Train.

The plant is the joint second-largest liquefaction facility in the US, from seven existing facilities, along with Cameron LNG and Corpus Christi LNG, and is surpassed in output only by the six-Train plant at Sabine Pass in Louisiana, owned by Cheniere Energy.

Freeport LNG's main customers include Japan’s largest importer JERA Co. Inc., the Japanese utilities Kansai Electric and Osaka Gas as well as South Korean company SK E&S and buyers in Europe.

During the first quarter of 2022 before the accident, the Freeport plant exported 55 cargoes mainly to import terminals in Europe and North Asia.

Freeport LNG, the operating company for the liquefaction and export plant at Quintana Island in Texas, issued a long-awaited update to the June 8 incident and said most of the plant was expected to be closed for three months.