Natgas flows to US LNG export plants hit record high

The amount of gas flowing to US liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants hit a record high over the weekend, erasing all of this year's losses from coronavirus demand destruction.

Data provider Refinitiv said feedgas to the LNG plants hit an all-time daily high of 10.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Saturday.

That topped the previous high of 9.5 bcfd on March 31, before buyers started canceling cargoes as coronavirus demand destruction caused prices in Europe and Asia to collapse to record lows in the spring.

In late August, feedgas flows to the US LNG plants collapsed to an 18-month low of just 2.3 bcfd due to a combination of hurricane and maintenance outages, and cargo cancellations.

One billion cubic feet of gas can supply about 5 million US homes for a day.

US exports fell each month from March to July as LNG buyers this year canceled around 175 US cargoes.

But with global gas prices rising over the past two months, LNG buyers have reversed earlier cargo cancellations and are now purchasing lots of US gas.

Gas prices in Europe and Asia hit their highest levels since 2019 in late October, briefly putting both contracts more than $2 per million British thermal units over the US Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana.

All six of the big US LNG export plants, which together can export about 10 bcfd of gas, were operating in recent weeks after returning from hurricane and maintenance outages and capacity reductions due to cargo cancellations.

The US LNG plants are owned by units of Cheniere Energy Inc (Sabine Pass in Louisiana and Corpus Christi in Texas), Freeport LNG in Texas, Cameron LNG in Louisiana, Kinder Morgan Inc (Elba Island in Georgia) and Dominion Energy Inc (Cove Point in Maryland).