Biden DOE Rushing to Release “Study” Attacking LNG Exports
In January, Joe Biden announced he would “pause” any approvals for new LNG export plants, with over a dozen requests in the pipeline, for at least one year while his people fart around pretending to figure out how to measure global warming as a new consideration for whether or not to approve projects (see White House Makes it Official – Biden Declares War on LNG Exports). Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm (can’t wait to see her gone!) said the “pause” would be over and done no later than January 2025. Bloomberg is reporting that the DOE, following the election of Donald Trump, is now rushing to complete and adopt its sure-to-be-negative report, which could complicate Trump’s plan to expand LNG exports rapidly. Read More “Biden DOE Rushing to Release “Study” Attacking LNG Exports”
One of the reasons Kamala Harris lost (and lost big) is a complete tone deafness on energy issues, including the “pause” she and her boss put on approving new LNG export requests all the way back in January (see 
Yesterday, two European companies announced separate deals for Coterra Energy to provide Marcellus natural gas to an unidentified LNG export facility that will liquefy and sell it to them. One company was commodities trader Vitol (based in Switzerland) and the other utility giant Centrica (based in the U.K.). Both deals were for 100 MMcf/d (or 100,000 MMBtus) each. The Vitol deal is for 11 years, and the Centrica deal is for 10 years. Combined, it represents 1.4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus natural gas heading to other European and Asian countries. 
Economics, in its purest form, is unforgiving. Economics is science, like the laws of gravity. In a market (in this case, the world market) where there is too much supply for existing demand, the seller/supplier will end up lowering the price charged for the good or service. Others in the market are willing to drop prices to attract scarce customers, which turns into a race to the bottom. Such is what’s happening right now with LNG cargo carriers. A flood of new carriers has recently been added to the world’s supply. Because of the Biden-Harris “pause” on new LNG export approvals (and other factors), LNG exports have not expanded at the same rate as available cargo vessels. The result is that the bottom has dropped out of how much it costs to rent an LNG carrier. The rates are down 87% in the Atlantic and 78% in the Pacific from year-ago levels and are the weakest since at least 2019. 
Here is an interesting story about the Biden-Harris Department of Energy (DOE) “pause” in approving new LNG export projects. You may recall that in January, the Biden-Harris DOE announced it would “pause” any approvals for new LNG export plants (currently 15 requests in the pipeline) for at least one year while D.C. swampies fart around pretending to figure out how to measure global warming as a new consideration for whether or not to approve such projects (see 
Last week, National Center for Energy Analytics (NCEA) Senior Fellow Tristan Abbey published a report examining the politicization of liquid natural gas (LNG) exports and recommending three pathways to ensure the United States maintains and expands the economic and geopolitical benefits from its dominant position in the global LNG market. In “A Generational Opportunity: Achieving U.S. Dominance in Global LNG” (full copy below), Abbey explores the history of LNG exports, the mechanisms by which the U.S. ascended to primacy, and the urgency in pursuing reform to capture a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity. 
Here’s something the radical left in mainstream media that demagogues LNG-by-rail either doesn’t know or is covering up: There are some trains *already* transporting LNG on rail cars today, despite a ban on the practice by the Bidenista. How? Some trains use LNG as fuel for the locomotive engines that pull the train. The LNG is stored in a specially outfitted rail car, the same type of car now banned by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). LNG-for-fuel is being used by at least one railroad (in Florida) every single day. Meaning all of the howling from the left about “bomb trains” hauling LNG through populated communities is nonsensical garbage. 
This morning, Diversified Energy Company (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil) announced it had signed a deal to supply 40 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas over three years to a “major Gulf Coast LNG facility” for exporting. The contract begins in November (next month!), which means even though Diversified isn’t (yet) willing to identify the LNG export facility, it will sell to a facility already up and running and not fully supplied, limiting the pool of potentials to a handful. The announcement says more details about the deal will be released in the company’s forthcoming third quarter update. 
Air Products, headquartered in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania (Allentown area), once manufactured huge rocket-looking “production trains” or “heat exchangers,” which are pieces of equipment that turn natural gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG), in a plant in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The heat exchangers manufactured by Air Products in Wilkes-Barre were two-thirds of a football field long (180 feet) and used by plants all over the world to condense natural gas into a liquid. Air Products shut down the Wilkes-Barre plant in 2017. However, it kept operating a second LNG manufacturing plant in Port Manatee, Florida. A few weeks ago, the company announced that it had completed the process of selling its LNG technology manufacturing business, including the Port Manatee facility, to Honeywell for $1.8 billion (see 
Feedgas flowing from the Marcellus/Utica to the Cove Point LNG export facility located on the shore of Maryland fell to zero on Friday, Sept. 20, as the facility began its planned annual maintenance outage (see 
In early September, MDN told you that UGI Corporation, one of PA’s largest utility companies, plans to store trailers of LNG in the parking lot of a storage facility near Scranton, PA, and is seeking a zoning variance to do so (see 
Simply amazing. In August, we told you that most of Venture Global’s contracted customers for LNG from the company’s Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility in southwestern Louisiana’s Cameron Parish had filed for arbitration over Venture Global’s refusal to sell them cargoes under contract (see 
Venture Global’s Plaquemines LNG export facility (Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana) has consistently received small gas deliveries since mid-September from an interconnect with the Texas Eastern Transmission Company (TETCO) pipeline. However, the 2.6 Bcf/d Plaquemines terminal has not yet begun to produce its first LNG. Gas deliveries will increase this fall as commissioning activities ramp up. The question is, will Venture Global screw its Plaquemines contracted customers the way it has its Calcasieu Pass customers? 
Two days ago, MDN told you about a Congressional investigation looking into the Department of Energy’s use of a prematurely released “study” as an excuse to “pause” (i.e., ban) new LNG export approvals (see