Freeport LNG, which operates a three-train export facility on Quintana Island along the Texas Gulf Coast, said recent freezing temperatures in Texas impacted its Train 3, which will be offline for at least one month.

Freeport’s three-train 15 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) export facility, located about 66 miles from downtown Houston, is the seventh largest in the world and second largest in the U.S. The facility initially started importing LNG in June 2008 and flipped to exporting LNG in 2019.

“During Winter Storm Heather, one of our refrigeration electric motors at our liquefaction facility experienced an electrical issue that will necessitate a replacement of the motor with an on-hand spare,” Houston-based Freeport LNG confirmed Jan. 29 in an emailed response to Hart Energy.

“We anticipate an outage of approximately one month of one of our three trains as we work to safely and expeditiously return our liquefaction facility to normal operations,” the company said, referring to a statement filing on Jan. 26.

According to Freeport LNG, the three trains have a combined liquefaction capacity equivalent to around 2.2 Bcf/d of gas, enough to power and light a metropolitan area around the size of San Antonio, for a full day. Freeport has plans to add a fourth train, which will add 5.1 mtpa, or 0.7 Bcf/d, yet that’s still years away.

The latest incident comes after the company suffered a near 10- month stoppage from June 2022 to March 2023 due to a vapor cloud explosion at one of the facility’s lines.

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