The missing 2 Bcf is still missing
Freeport LNG went into maintenance on July 10. EIA and the trade press have been saying late August for a return. That outage takes about 2 billion cubic feet a day of nameplate export capacity out of a Gulf Coast system that was already the swing valve for the world price.
Every week it stays down, that gas stays in the United States. It shows up as fatter South Central storage and a Henry Hub contract that cannot hold a rally. FX Empire's mid-August notes put it bluntly. Tuesday's heat rally priced the weather, not the export recovery. The recovery has not started.
Then, on August 19, Freeport reported Train 3 tripped because of an incoming power-feed interruption. That is not the same thing as the planned maintenance wrapping early. It is a reminder that even the trains that are supposed to come back can stumble on the way.
Feedgas tells you the truth
Rystad numbers in the AGA weekly had U.S. LNG feedgas at 17.1 Bcf per day for the week ending August 19. That is 12.8 percent below the early-year daily record of 19.6 Bcf per day, 1.5 percent below the prior week, and still 11 percent above the same week in 2025. Year to date, deliveries have averaged 17.9 Bcf per day, up about 17 percent from last year.
So the export machine is bigger than a year ago and smaller than it was in the spring. Freeport is the hole. EIA cut third-quarter export volumes to 16.5 Bcf per day, 0.2 Bcf below the July outlook, and said that even with Freeport fully back, growth is limited because new U.S. capacity is coming on slower than the TTF and JKM spreads would justify.
International prices jumped in July as Hormuz traffic slowed. The arb is wide. The pipes into the liquefaction plants are not full. That is the whole U.S. LNG story this month.
Golden Pass is real. It is not Freeport
The QatarEnergy-ExxonMobil plant in southeast Texas loaded its seventh cargo this week. Argus, using Kpler, had QatarEnergy's Umm Heesh leaving early Wednesday with about 76,000 tonnes for Zeebrugge in Belgium. Since June 26, after its own maintenance, Golden Pass has averaged one loading every 13.5 days. That is about 2.4 million tonnes a year, or 40 percent of the first train.
Train 1 at full clip can do about 1.6 cargoes a week. They are not there. Feedgas hit 529 million cubic feet on Tuesday, the most since July 2, and nominations printed as high as 588 million on August 19. The 30-day average through August 17 was 320 million. This is a commissioning curve, not a nameplate curve.
Trains 2 and 3 were supposed to follow in six-month steps. Zachry Holdings, the original lead contractor, went bankrupt in 2024. The cadence is now a market question, not a slide.
Why a Canadian reader should care
When Freeport is down, more U.S. gas stays home and Henry Hub stays heavy. A heavy Henry Hub keeps a lid on how far AECO can drift up on a continental basis, even when Kitimat is pulling west. When Freeport and Golden Pass are both running, the U.S. Gulf takes more of the Atlantic and European cargoes, and a Pacific cargo from B.C. is even more clearly an Asia ship.
Watch the late-August Freeport call. If maintenance slips, the U.S. surplus gets another couple of weeks. If Train 3 keeps tripping, the "export recovery" trade stays a headline. Golden Pass adding a cargo every two weeks is nice. It is not 2 Bcf a day.