Gas flows to Louisiana Cameron LNG export plant cut ahead of hurricane, LSEG data shows
Sept 10 (Reuters) - The amount of natural gas flowing to the Cameron LNG export plant in Louisiana dropped on Tuesday, just one day before Tropical Storm Francine was expected to hit the Louisiana coast near Cameron as a hurricane, data from financial firm LSEG showed.
Officials at Cameron LNG were not immediately available for comment on the reason for the reduction.
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LSEG said the amount of gas flowing to Cameron fell from about 2.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Monday to 1.3 bcfd on Tuesday. That compares with an average of 2.1 bcfd over the past week.
One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply about five million homes for a day.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) projected Francine will strengthen into a hurricane on Tuesday before hitting the Louisiana coast on Wednesday. Louisiana is home to three of the nation's seven big LNG export plants, including Cameron.
With over 75% of U.S. gas production coming from big inland shale basins like Appalachia in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio and the Permian in West Texas and eastern New Mexico, analysts said hurricanes were more likely to reduce gas prices by cutting demand through power outages and knocking LNG export plants out of service.
That is different from 20 years ago when 20% of the nation's gas came from the federal offshore Gulf of Mexico. Back then, Gulf Coast hurricanes usually caused gas prices to spike, but now that offshore region produces only about 2% of the country's gas.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; editing by Jason Neely and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)