US LNG Takes Record Gas Supply in July
US LNG terminals took a record 6bn ft3/day of natural gas in July, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said August 19, making liquefaction the fastest-growing natural gas consumption sector through the first seven months of the year.
Citing data from OPIS Point Logic, the EIA said the deliveries to LNG facilities represented 7% of US dry gas production in July – a month which saw LNG exports exceed 5bn ft3/day for the first time.
“EIA estimates that US LNG exports set new records in June and July 2019 at 4.8bn ft3/day and 5.2bn ft3/day, respectively, based on tanker loadings data from Bloomberg,” the agency said in its Today in Energy report. “Natural gas feedstock deliveries to LNG export terminals averaged 5.5bn ft3/day in June and 6.0bn ft3/day in July, implying that about 15% of the natural gas feedstock sent to LNG facilities was used as fuel in the liquefaction process.”
Two new liquefaction trains came on-line in 1H 2019, Train 1 at Cameron LNG in Louisiana and Train 2 at Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi Liquefaction project in Texas. Total US LNG export capacity now stands at some 5.4bn ft3/day across four facilities and nine liquefaction trains.
And two new LNG export terminals – Elba Island LNG in Georgia and Freeport LNG in Texas – are expected to place their first trains in service over the next two months. Both have been receiving small commissioning volumes of natural gas feedstock since July.