Gas intake at Louisiana's Sabine Pass LNG export terminal in the last several days has dropped to the lowest level in more than a month because of maintenance.
The facility was scheduled to receive 1.26 Bcf (35.5mn m³) of gas today, after receiving 1.25 Bcf yesterday and 1.29 Bcf/d each on 26-27 February, according to pipeline nomination data.
Testing of the third liquefaction train at the terminal began in November and intake had ramped up to an average of 2.12 Bcf/d on 15-22 February, before declining to an average of 1.71 Bcf/d on 23-25 February.
Flows dipped to 1.17 Bcf on 31 January, after averaging 1.74 Bcf/d on 1-30 January.
Cheniere told Argus today that gas intake will fluctuate during the testing process as maintenance is performed.
In an earnings call yesterday, the Houston-based company said it expects to take over long-term operations of the third train by the end of March after contractor Bechtel completes testing.
Cheniere is building five liquefaction trains at the $20bn Sabine Pass export facility and two at its $10bn Corpus Christi LNG export project in Texas. Each train will have peak capacity of 5mn t/yr, equivalent to about 694mn cf/d of gas, and baseload capacity of 4.5mn t/yr. Each train typically will export about one standard-sized LNG cargo a week.
The first three trains likely were each operating at peak capacity on 15-22 February, according to pipeline nominations.
Sabine Pass train 1 exported its first cargo on 24 February 2016 and Cheniere took over long-term operations of that unit on 27 May 2016. Train 2 exported its first cargo in August and Cheniere took control of that train in mid-September.
Train 4 is scheduled to come on line in the second half of this year and train 5 in 2019. The Corpus Christi trains likely will start operating in 2019-20.
