The US maintained record levels of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports in February, with a total of 15 cargoes headed overseas, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). The number follows on from record high levels in the previous two months.
Most of the cargoes headed to Asia (or covered cargoes that moved to Asia), rather than moving o Europe as many had expected, due to high demand and prices in Korea, China and Japan – which remains the world’s largest LNG importer. Colder weather in Europe later in the winter helped eventually push gas prices high enough to draw in cargoes there, with deliveries rising in March.
Cheniere’s Sabine Pass liquefaction terminal in Louisiana, which is the first – and so far the only -operating LNG export facility in the lower 49 states, sold twelve LNG cargoes in December and a record fifteen in January, utilising cheap US shale gas. The total volume of exported LNG rose slightly in February to 51.8 Bcf, compared to 51.5 Bcf in January, the EIA said.
Since it began exporting in February 2016, Cheniere’s Sabine Pass facility has shipped more than 70 cargoes worldwide. By 2021, four additional LNG export facilities currently under construction in the US are expected to be completed. These five plants would have an operational export capacity of 9.2 Bcf per day in total, according to the EIA.
The EIA has previously said that the US is expected to become a net natural gas exporter by 2018 and the world’s third-largest LNG supplier by 2020. In the 1960s the Kenai LNG plant in Alaska, was among the first ever to export LNG, and is now shut.