DOE Rule Change Means LNG Projects Must Build Within 7 Years
The Dept. of Energy (DOE) grants permission for LNG export facilities to ship LNG to non-free trade agreement countries. It can take years to sign up enough customers (via contracts) and investors to make a “final investment decision” (or FID) to move forward with a project that often approaches $20 billion. LNG builders need to know once the plant is built, it can actually ship to other countries. But the DOE grants its permission to export with a string attached: The plant must get built and begin shipping within seven years–or the permit expires. Until April, LNG builders would routinely ask for an extension to the seven-year period. In April, the DOE changed its policy and declined to extend a permit for Energy Transfer’s Lake Charles LNG project beyond seven years (see Biden DOE Denies Lake Charles LNG Time Extension for Exports).
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Once a month, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts issue the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), their best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. Yesterday’s May edition predicts that U.S. natural gas production will rise to hit a new, all-time record high of 101.09 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) this year! That’s up from last year’s record-high of 98.13 Bcf/d. However, the report also predicts domestic gas consumption will fall. What about prices? More supply with less demand typically means lower prices.
THE Delaware Riverkeeper appears to be obsessed with New Fortress Energy’s plan to liquefy natural gas in Bradford County, PA, and ship it via rail and truck to a former DuPont dynamite factory site in New Jersey along the Delaware River for export. Riverkeeper released a “report” (propaganda) bashing the LNG export plan. Riverkeeper paid a consulting firm that hires itself out to Big Green groups to produce the report.
U.S. LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports are hitting new highs each month now that the Freeport LNG facility came back online in March (see 
Although the Bidenistas are now in control of the formerly objective U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and try to hide the truth about fossil energy, the truth has a way of coming out. In March, we told you about the latest edition of the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook for 2023 (see 
On December 5, 2019, the PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) granted a special permit to Energy Transport Solutions, LLC (i.e. New Fortress Energy) to transport LNG in DOT-113C120 rail tanker cars between Wyalusing, PA and Gibbstown, NJ (see 
Energy Transfer’s (ET) Lake Charles LNG project, in Louisiana, has been plagued with trouble from the beginning. The project began life as a 50/50 joint venture with Shell. However, Shell pulled out in 2020 (see 
For years, going back to the time when MDN editor Jim Willis worked in Washington, D.C. during his youth (mid-1980s), the joke circulating around D.C. was, “The most dangerous place to be in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a camera.” And that was back when Chuck was just a lowly Congressman! These days, the most dangerous place to be anywhere in the country is between an anti-fossil fuel zealot and a microphone at a public hearing. Antis DEMAND to have access to microphones anywhere and everywhere in order to spew their fossil fuel hate speech. And God help you if you deny them that “right”! Antis got denied yesterday in Philadelphia, and they are hopping mad about it.
Some interesting insights from S&P Global Commodity Insights into how the world has changed. S&P’s analysts say the Russia-Ukraine war is in the process of “resetting” the energy sector, with natural gas turning into a global and interconnected market affected by events and dynamics far beyond its traditional physical scope. In fact, S&P says natural gas is now similar, to some extent, to what oil used to be for decades. We will explain.
Freeport LNG is back online, sucking up 2.1 (or more) billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas, some of it from the Marcellus/Utica, exporting LNG to other countries. Freeport was out of commission following an explosion and fire in June 2022 until several weeks ago (see 
National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). It appears because of opposition from crazy leftists, they won’t succeed. For several years the company has fought a battle to run a tiny pipeline to its Greenpoint, Brooklyn facility to provide extra natural gas. That project is going nowhere fast. National Grid has/had a backup plan in case it could not complete the pipeline project–add two extra LNG vaporizers to the Greenpoint facility to turn trucked LNG back into gas that can flow through the system. It seems even Plan B is now gone. What’s left are coming gas outages for Long Island.
Three weeks ago, Chesapeake Energy announced a 15-year deal to provide natural gas for LNG exports to Gunvor Singapore Pte (see 
We have been closely tracking the restart of the shuttered Freeport LNG export terminal following its emergency shutdown in June 2022 after an explosion and fire. Earlier this week, we told you about the plant’s rocky restart road, with feedgas flowing to the plant averaging around 50% of total capacity (see