International:
First export cargo from Freeport LNG nears UAE port: cFlow
Houston Freeport LNG’s first export cargo neared its destination in the United Arab Emirates Thursday, amid a ramp-up in production at US Gulf Coast liquefaction terminals and expansion efforts by midstream operators like Enterprise Products Partners to allow more feedgas to flow to those facilities.The tanker LNG Jurojin, which left Texas on September 3, was anchored along the east coast of the UAE, with a captain’s destination set for Jebel Ali, a deepwater port southwest of Dubai where Excelerate Energy operates an LNG receiving terminal from a floating storage regasification unit, according to cFlow, Platts trade flow software. Arrival was scheduled for Saturday.
Freeport LNG, south of Houston, has been boosting output from its first train as it continues construction of its second and third trains and works to commercialize a proposed fourth train. The start of commercial service from Train 1 under long-term contracts is currently targeted for October.
The Gulf of Mexico is a hub for US exports of oil, petrochemicals, pipeline natural gas and, in the last three years, LNG. Liquefaction capacity in the region is expected to grow significantly into the early to middle part of the next decade, a trend that will increase demand for feedgas along the coasts of Texas, Louisiana and, depending on whether certain projects go forward, Mississippi as well.
Last week, Enterprise announced plans to expand and extend its Acadian natural gas system to deliver growing volumes of natural gas from the Haynesville shale to the LNG market along the Gulf.
The project will include construction of an approximately 80-mile pipeline originating near Cheneyville, Louisiana, on Enterprise’s Acadian Haynesville Extension to third-party interconnects near Gillis, Louisiana, including multiple pipelines serving LNG export facilities in South Louisiana and southeast Texas, the company said. The Gillis Lateral will have a capacity of approximately 1 Bcf/d.
As part of the project, Enterprise also plans to increase capacity on the Acadian Haynesville Extension by adding horsepower at its Mansfield compressor station in De Soto Parish. When completed, the expansion and extension project will increase the Acadian system’s capability to transport Haynesville natural gas production from 1.8 Bcf/d to 2.1 Bcf/d, Enterprise said. In-service is targeted for mid-2021.
Several other exporters, developers and traditional pipeline operators have proposed new infrastructure to bring more gas to the Gulf Coast from shale plays in Texas, Louisiana and the mid-Continent.
Cheniere Energy’s approximately 1.4-Bcf/d Midcontinent Supply Header Interstate Pipeline project, or Midship, which is being designed to move gas to the region from Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin, could enter at least partial service as early as next month. Cheniere operates LNG export terminals in Louisiana and Texas.
The pipeline project is designed to provide service from the SCOOP and STACK resource plays to connections with pipelines near Bennington, Oklahoma, where the gas can move to the Gulf Coast and the Southeast, including LNG export terminals.