Japan's Osaka Gas raises US Freeport LNG outage loss estimate to Yen 149.5 bil

Japan's Osaka Gas is bracing itself for a higher-than-predicted loss from the US Freeport LNG outage for the fiscal 2022-23 (April-March) amid a delayed restart and higher alternative procurement costs.

The company now expects losses ballooning to Yen 149.5 billion ($1.13 billion) for FY 2022-23 from an earlier estimate of Yen 109.5 billion loss on Oct. 31, it said Feb. 6.

Osaka Gas' FY 2022-23 forecast is based on an assumption that it will not receive any Freeport LNG cargoes by the end of March, an Osaka Gas spokesperson said.

The company is "hopeful for partial restarts momentarily", the spokesperson said, attributing the higher loss estimates to increased alternative procurement costs for both the company and its customers due to the delayed restart of the terminal.

Osaka Gas has a 10.8% stake in Freeport LNG Development, the operator of the Freeport LNG project. It lifts 2.32 million mt/year of LNG from Train 1 of the Freeport LNG terminal.

The Freeport LNG terminal, with a 15 million mt/year capacity over three trains, has been offline since June 8 following an explosion and fire at the US export facility.