U.S. natural gas futures were up by about 1% on Tuesday as the volume of gas flowing to liquified natural gas (LNG) export plants remains at historically high levels.
These high levels of gas flow come after Freeport LNG’s plant in Texas reopened in February after remaining closed for eight months. The facility was temporarily shut in June 2022 following the outbreak of a fire.
Front-month gas futures for May delivery listed on the New York Mercantile Exchange advanced by 3 cents, or 1.4%, to $2.127 per million British thermal units during Tuesday’s morning session. This comes after a particularly volatile period of trading, with the front-month gaining rising or falling by 5% or more in 12 of the past 22 days of trading.
Data provider Refinitiv reported that Freeport LNG’s Texas facility was set to pull in about 2.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas on Tuesday, down from the 2.3 bcfd pulled in on Monday.
The seven major U.S. LNG export plants posted average gas flows of 4.1 bcfd so far in April; a rise from the record 13.2 bcfd in March.