LONDON, June 9 (Reuters) - Freeport LNG, operator of one of the largest U.S. export plants producing liquefied natural gas (LNG), will shut for at least three weeks following an explosion at its Texas Gulf Coast facility, raising the risk of gas shortages in Europe.

The plant, which provides around 20% of U.S. LNG processing, announced the shutdown late on Wednesday after appraising damage to the massive facility.

On Thursday, European gas prices rose by up to a fifth as traders feared lost U.S. shipments would stress a market already struggling with reduced Russian supplies.

Below are key facts on the plant's major buyers and the possible impact of the outage.

PLANT CAPACITY

- The Freeport plant can process up to 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day (bcfd) and at full capacity can export 15 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of the liquid gas. U.S. LNG exports hit a record 9.7 bcfd last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

- Freeport LNG has been operating at or just above its nameplate capacity of 15 mtpa so far this year.

- In March, 21 cargoes loaded at the Freeport facility, carrying an estimated 64 billion cubic feet of gas to destinations in Europe, South Korea and China, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. That's up from 15 cargoes in February and 19 in January.

MAJOR BUYERS

- BP, TotalEnergies, Osaka Gas, JERA and SK are listed as the buyers of Freeport LNG cargoes, Industry sources said.

- BP has the largest contract at 4.4 million tonnes per annum through 2040. Jera and Osaka Gas have contracts at 2.3 mtpa each through 2039, while SK and Total Energies have 2.2 mtpa contracts each that run through 2040, according to the International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers (GIIGNL).

- Trafigura also has a small contract to buy gas from Freeport at 0.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa).

- The companies have tolling contracts, which means they buy the gas upstream, arrange shipping to the terminal, which then regasifies it and the offtaker lifts the cargo.

EXPORTS TO EUROPE

- Analysts said that around 70% of Freeport monthly supplies in the past few months went to the European Union and Britain.

- France, UK, Turkey and Netherlands have been the biggest European importers from Freeport LNG this year.

POTENTIAL DISRUPTION

- A three-week outage at Freeport would result in a loss of around 940,000 tonnes of LNG, or about 13 cargoes based on an average cargo size of around 70,000 tonnes, according to Alex Froley, LNG analyst at ICIS.

- If Europe wants to keep importing LNG at the same level, replacement cargoes will need to be pulled in, likely from other Atlantic Basin projects, according to Edmund Siau, LNG analyst at consultancy FGE.

(Reporting by Marwa Rashad in London; additional reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo; Editing by Veronica Brown Kirsten Donovan)