Cheniere Energy Inc. has received US Department of Energy (DOE) authorization to export the equivalent of an additional 720 MMcfd of natural gas from its 30-million tonne/year (tpy) Sabine Pass and 15-million tpy Corpus Christi LNG plants combined to any country with which the US does not have a free trade agreement, including all of Europe. US exporters are already shipping at or near maximum capacity, but the new authorizations make it so that every operating US plant now has DOE approval to export its full capacity to any country not prohibited by US law or policy.
The US is already the top global exporter of LNG and exports are set to grow an additional 20% by end 2022 as additional capacity comes online, according to DOE. The US was also Europe’s largest source of LNG in 2021, accounting for 26% of all LNG imported by European Union member countries (EU-27) and the UK, followed by Qatar with 24%, and Russia with 20%.
In January 2022, however, the US supplied more than half of all LNG imports into Europe for the month. Exports of LNG from the US to EU-27 and the UK increased from 3.4 bcfd in November 2021 to 6.5 bcfd in January 2022; the most LNG ever shipped to Europe from the US on a monthly basis, according to DOE’s ‘LNG Monthly’ reports and Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates based on LNG shipping data. Rising US LNG exports stem from both natural gas supply problems in Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sizable price differences between gas produced in the US and current prices at European trading hubs.
Cheniere earlier this month let a lump-sum, turnkey engineering, procurement, and construction contract to Bechtel for its 10-million tpy Corpus Christi Stage III project and expects to take final investment decision on the project third-quarter 2022 (OGJ Online, Mar. 7, 2022).
