The U.S. Must Not Lose China’s Liquefied Natural Gas Market
As much as I am in favor of LNG but only to maintain a market that will gamble for what it’s worth dropping a policy before it has run its course and shown its potential is not smart. There is much more in the tiller for the US that just LNG exports. Besides, China is hurting itself as it reduces its options from where to buy which has just made the final LNG – which it desperately needs – bill higher.
With the first facility coming online just 31 months ago, the U.S. now stands at the beginning of a tremendous chance to flourish in the rapidly expanding liquefied natural gas (LNG) export business. Our capacity to export LNG is set to boom from ~3.5 Bcf/d today (about 4% of total U.S. gas production) to 10-12 Bcf/d by 2021, which is nearly 30% of the current global market. With U.S. gas production continuing to increase to all-time records, and a tripling of our export terminals to six by the end of next year, the International Energy Agency reports that we have the potential to pass Qatar and Australia to become the world’s largest exporter of LNG within five to seven years.
