The Cove Point LNG export plant located in Maryland is set to enter maintenance within the next few days. This event, occurring yearly each Fall, will result in inflows to the facility dropping to zero for about one month. While the plant is located in the Mid-Atlantic region, it serves as a source of downstream demand for Northeast gas production. This drop in demand could result in tighter pipeline capacity and potentially weaker Northeast spot prices.
The chart above shows inflows to the 0.9 Bcf/d Cove Point LNG export facility. Typically, maintenance occurs from mid-September through mid-October and results in nominations dropping to zero during this period. Various maintenance work is scheduled for the pipeline which supplies the plant, such as an electrical outage from 9/20/25 through 10/11/25. It’s likely that plant downtime will coincide with the pipeline maintenance. While this is one of the smaller LNG export facilities, it does represent a sizeable amount of downstream demand for the Northeast region.
The export plant is located at the terminus of the Cove Point Pipeline, which is supplied by gas from interconnects with TCO and Transco. Less demand on these pipes could result in a smaller amount of available pipeline space as more gas tries to exit the region toward the south. With open pipeline capacity out of the Northeast somewhat scarce at times, this could result in downward pressure on Northeast spot prices like Dom South or TETCO M2.