October 2015 – American Oil & Gas Reporter
October 2015 ‘Editor’s Choice’
LNG Exports: Diverse And Abundant U.S. Natural Gas Supplies To Feed LNG Export Facilities
By E. Russell “Rusty” Braziel
HOUSTON–Natural gas demand is increasing in the power generation, industrial and residential/commercial space heating sectors, but few factors will have a greater effect on future U.S. natural gas production–or pricing–levels than the degree to which U.S. liquefied natural gas exporters can successfully penetrate Asian, European and other global gas markets.
In 2014, the equivalent of more than 30 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas was shipped in the form of 240 million metric tons of LNG per annum (MTPA) from liquefaction centers in countries such as Qatar, Malaysia and Australia to importing nations led by Japan, South Korea, China and India. Once expected to join the list of largest LNG importers, the United States instead is poised to become one of the top three exporters over the next three to five years, and may emerge as the world’s top LNG exporter by 2025.
The first four LNG export terminals scheduled to commence operations are Cheniere Energy’s six-train Sabine Pass plant in Cameron Parish, La., the Cameron three-train project at Hackberry, La., Freeport LNG’s two-train facility at Freeport, Tx., and Dominion’s single-train Cove Point project at Lusby, Md. Cheniere is expected to start up the first train at Sabine Pass later this year, with the other 11 liquefaction trains coming online between 2018 and 2020.
Together, the 12 trains at these four export terminals will have the capacity to supercool up to 7 Bcf/d of gas into LNG and export up to 54 million MTPA (equal to 22.5 percent of the total amount of LNG shipped around the world in 2014).
Read the full article here: http://www.aogr.com/magazine/editors-choice/diverse-and-abundant-u.s.-natural-gas-supplies-to-feed-lng-export-facilitie
