“So they need the Natural Gas Liquification plants in the US to produce LNG, plus the LNG ships to transport from the US to Europe, plus the LNG deliquification plants in Europe to put gaseous NG into the European pipelines.
All in time for winter to replace the NORD Stream I and II gas pipelines from Russia.
Starting in November doesn’t leave much time to transport that much gas to Europe”
It is a huge effort, but all of those actions are going on concurrently. Out of those, the current driving constraint is available supply to fill the ships.
Freeport LNG is now expecting to resume partial operations in early to mid-November, reaching 2 billion cubic feet of gas production per day by the end of November, which represents 85% of the facility’s export capacity.
It is the seventh-largest liquefaction facility in the world and the second-largest in the United States.
That 2 billion cubic feet per day is about 13% of how much the the Europeans imported from Russia last year. Half or Russia’s former gas imports to Europe have already been replaced, so Freeport alone is about 1/4 of the gap remaining, to fully replace Russian gas.
The EU plan is to replace 2/3rds of Russia’s former gas supply by the end of this year, so Freeport alone will just about do that for them. To replace 100% of Russia’s former supply (that last 1/3), infrastructure in Europe becomes more of a driving constraint, especially LNG import terminal capacity in Northern Europe and Greece.
Ships are more a matter of cost than a physical constraint. Europeans are outbidding other consumers who want shiploads.
Nordstream2 was never activated, and it’s parent company is now dissolving in bankruptcy proceedings, but Nordstream (1) remains in operation, and is capable of delivering over 5 billion cubic feet per day, more than twice Freeport’s total.
If Russia continues its contracted deliveries through the Winter, there is no supply problem in Europe. The stress is preparing for a Russian shutoff (which has been the Russian pattern under Putin). Russia has already cut off several Western European countries, incuding Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands. Some of that is over the refusal to pay in rubles rather than dollars (as contracted), so if push comes to shove, they might pay in rubles this Winter.
By the following Winter, a lot more LNG import capacity will be online in Europe.
Thank you for the detailed analysis!