Boston Imports 10th Foreign LNG Cargo This Year – It’s Only August!
For more than four years, we have been calling attention to the fact that the Boston/New England area imports FOREIGN LNG each year, even though abundant DOMESTIC supplies sit a few hundred miles away in the Pennsylvania Marcellus (see Confirmed: LNG Coming to Boston on Jan 22 is Illegal Russian Gas). New England pays 2-4X as much for their imported natural gas as they would from the Marcellus/Utica. What stops Boston from using domestic supplies? Politicians (the governors) in both New York and Massachusetts block new pipelines. So far this year, Boston has imported ten cargoes of LNG at two facilities near Boston–roughly 16 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natgas. All of it is from foreign sources.
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In June, seemingly out of nowhere, a plan to build an LNG export facility on the banks of the Delaware River south of Philadelphia made big headlines in Philly. Penn LNG, headed by Franc James, a native of Philadelphia, has “quietly lined up support to build a $6.4 billion liquefied natural gas export terminal near Philly.” While acknowledging such a project will face stiff opposition, James is planning to pre-file with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by the end of this year, and reach a final investment decision (FID) by 2024. Full speed ahead!
Cheniere Energy operates the largest LNG export facility in the U.S.–the Sabine Pass LNG facility in the Lake Charles, LA area. Sabine Pass liquefies and exports 30 mtpa (million tonnes per year) of LNG. If new plans unveiled by Cheniere play out, the company’s second LNG export facility in Corpus Christi, TX, will come close to the output at Sabine Pass–around 28 mtpa. Both facilities have the capability of exporting Marcellus/Utica molecules.
You have to hand it to the wackadoodles of the Sierra Club–they sure are creative. They look for any way they can to block American fossil energy. They try to stop drilling for oil and gas via frack bans. They are behind many of the efforts to ban new customers from connecting to natural gas lines in “blue” cities (the ignorant fools fall into the trap almost every time). The Clubbers try to block the transportation of oil and gas by launching lawsuits against pipelines. And now, they are trying to block clean-burning American natural gas (far cleaner than any other gas extracted on the planet) from being exported to help our allies in Europe. The Clubbers and their radical brethren at a group called Healthy Gulf have challenged a “dredge and fill” permit granted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the Driftwood LNG facility now under construction near Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Talk about irony! Scared of the potential impacts of the coronavirus and with the price of oil crashing in March 2020 (just as COVID was getting started), Royal Dutch Shell pulled out of a 50/50 joint venture partnership with Energy Transfer (ET) to build a new LNG export facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana (see 
The Freeport LNG export facility, located in Quintana Island, Texas, has been offline since June due to an explosion and fire. Liquefying just over 2 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of natural gas, including some Marcellus/Utica gas, Freeport is the second largest LNG exporter in the country. Three weeks ago, Freeport announced the plant would be mostly back online and producing 2 Bcf/d sometime in October (see 
We simply don’t understand the minds of liberals. They are frustratingly irrational. In June, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about Germany buying LNG from Canada (see 
The second-largest LNG export terminal in the U.S., Freeport LNG, located near Galveston, Texas, experienced an explosion and fire in early June (see 
Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s (BHE) GT&S subsidiary announced that the Cove Point LNG export facility, which BHE GT&S operates, reached a major milestone at the end of July. Cove Point has loaded its 300th commercial LNG export cargo. All of the molecules that Cove Point liquefies come from the Marcellus Shale. MDN was there from the beginning, chronicling the journey from idea to construction to (now) loading 300 cargo ships full of Marcellus LNG. What a journey!
Two weeks ago, MDN brought you the news that a small amount of natural gas–roughly 22 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day)–is once again flowing into the closed Freeport LNG export facility (see 
Here’s some of the best news we’ve heard in a month! Freeport LNG, offline due to an explosion and fire in June, issued an announcement yesterday to say it has signed a deal with the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) that will allow the export facility to restart in October–at or near full strength of exporting 2 Bcf/d of natural gas.
EQT Corporation, the biggest natural gas producer in the United States (and a pureplay Marcellus/Utica driller), issued its second quarter 2022 update yesterday. The company raked in $550 million in free cash flow during 2Q and produced 5.5 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of natural gas. But don’t look for EQT to increase production any time soon–not until (says top management) it can get more of its molecules to markets outside of the M-U. The company’s answer to moving more molecules is to try and expand LNG exports from the East Coast.