By Curtis Williams
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exports of U.S. liquefied natural gas bounced higher in August as output from the country's second-largest export facility rose following an outage and maintenance activities at other plants wound down, preliminary data from financial firm LSEG showed on Tuesday.
Exports of the superchilled gas rose to 7.48 million metric tons (MT) in August, up from the 6.69 MT in July, which marked the second-lowest monthly exports of the year, the LSEG data showed.
The U.S. last year was the world's largest LNG exporter.
In August, Freeport LNG at times operated above nameplate capacity as it began to benefit from its debottlenecking work to add output beyond the plant's 15.3 MTPA capacity following an outage in July.
The Texas company's operations were offline for a time last month after a shutdown ahead of Hurricane Beryl, which hit the Texas coast near Freeport as a Category 1 hurricane on July 8. The plant remained down for eight days and resumed operations on a phased basis.
U.S LNG producers continued to favor exports to Asia. A heat wave was driving Asian LNG prices while a well-supplied Europe was putting downward pressure on prices on the continent, Masanori Odaka, senior analyst at Rystad Energy, said last month.
In August, 3.19 MT, or just under 43%, was supplied to Asia, a similar percentage but a slightly higher volume compared to the 2.9 MT shipped in July, LSEG ship tracking data showed.
Europe remained the second-favored destination for U.S. exports, with 2.92 MT, or 39%, sold to the continent, surpassing the 36% supplied to the continent in July.
Egypt, which continues to face a hot summer, imported 0.7 MT from the U.S. and Jordan imported 0.08 MT of the superchilled gas in August, LSEG data showed.
Sales of LNG to Latin America were 1.08 MT, or just over 14%. The share was higher than the 11% sold to the region in July, LSEG data show.
There were two cargoes that were out for orders with a total volume of 0.14 MT, shiptracking data showed.
In August, Venture Global LNG's 20 MTPA Plaquemines LNG facility signaled it was close to startup with the importation of LNG to cool its facility.
When the Louisiana plant is fully operating, it will become the second-largest U.S. export facility and further cement the U.S. as the world's largest exporter of the superchilled gas.