Gulf South Pipeline Co. said on March 24 it has stopped delivering natural gas to the Freeport LNG plant in Texas after its pipeline was struck by lightning.

The lightning strike caused Gulf South to declare a force majeure on the line effective immediately, it said in a statement, adding it is working to restore service as quickly as possible.

The incident has slashed gas usage at Freeport LNG's plant, which can process up to 2.4 Bcf/d of gas, to 450 MMcf/d from previous expectations of almost 1.8 Bcf/d, according to LSEG data.

Freeport usually requires at least 700 MMcf/d for one of its three trains to operate at full capacity.

The company declined to comment.

Freeport LNG is the U.S. third largest export facility of LNG and outages at the plant have in the past caused extreme price moves in the U.S., the world's largest exporter of LNG, and European gas markets.

Comments