Europe Grabs 74% of All U.S. LNG Exports Jan-Apr 2022
The number-crunchers at our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, published their analysis of LNG exports for the first four months of 2022. Unsurprisingly, because of the Ukraine war, EIA found that 74% of the LNG exported from the U.S. during that time has gone to Europe. It’s pretty much a reversal of last year when 34% of our LNG went to Europe. Last year most of our LNG went to Asia–China and South Korea. The percentages of how much U.S. LNG goes to Europe and how much goes to Asia have changed places over the past year.
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Broadcasting its intent to expand aggressively in the LNG export market, Chesapeake Energy is advertising to hire a liquefied natural gas (LNG) advisor. The LinkedIn ad shows that so far 41 people have applied. The ad opens by saying the company is looking for “a lead for new business opportunities for Chesapeake for liquified natural gas (LNG) and provides guidance on LNG Marketing activities in order to optimize the company’s revenue.” And hey, good news: The job can be 100% remote!
Energy Transfer (ET) has signed a fifth customer to accept shipments of LNG produced by ET’s yet-to-be-constructed LNG export facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana, located on the Calcasieu ship channel. Yesterday (yes, on a Sunday), ET issued a press release to announce a 25-year deal with China Gas to purchase 0.7 million tonnes (MT) of LNG per year on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. Added with the other deals, ET has now pre-sold 5.8 MT per year of the site’s planned capacity to produce 16.45 MT per year, meaning 35% of the capacity is now spoken for. More than a third of the way there!
According to Reuters analyst John Kemp, if the U.S. wants to keep growing its LNG exports, the amount of natural gas we produce will also have to grow. If natgas production falls behind, as it is now, prices will continue to skyrocket. LNG exports were up an astonishing 87% for the first three months of this year compared with 2019 (three years ago). Domestic consumption of natgas is pretty much the same year after year. The thing increasing year after year is exports–both LNG and pipeline exports to Mexico.
We’ve talked plenty about the big LNG export facilities scattered mostly along the Gulf Coast that export a fair amount of Marcellus/Utica molecules (and two LNG export sites situated on the East Coast, both of which export 100% M-U molecules). Every now and again we talk about some of the smaller LNG export operations, including Eagle LNG in Florida, which uses at least some M-U molecules. The experts at RBN Energy have a new post exploring “small-scale” LNG producers, including Eagle and three other companies that own and operate a number of small facilities. As with Eagle, these smaller players are potential customers for M-U molecules.
Despite screaming and howling at the moon by leftist Big Green groups, including the Sierra Club and Public Citizen, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week issued orders allowing two huge new LNG export facilities extra time to complete building those projects. On May 6, FERC issued a 31-month time extension to Cheniere Energy to build its third train (“Stage 3”) project at the existing Corpus Christi Liquefaction facility. FERC issued a three-year time extension to Energy Transfer’s Lake Charles LNG project. Both facilities have the potential to be fed, in part, by Marcellus/Utica molecules.
An interesting development for an LNG export project in Canada we’ve tracked for years. Bear Head Energy, Inc., the current owner of Bear Head LNG in Nova Scotia, is being sold to Houston-based Buckeye Partners for an undisclosed sum. Buckeye is a portfolio company of, wholly owned by, IFM Global Infrastructure Fund (based in Australia). The former owner of the Bear Head LNG project, LNG Limited, was also based in Australia before it went belly up. Buckeye is a serious company with serious assets in the U.S. and has declared its intent to develop the fully-permitted Bear Head project forthwith. Maybe Canada’s East Coast will get an LNG export facility after all!
National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). 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 being investigated by the Biden administration on charges of racism (see 
LNG seems to be the word on everyone’s lips these days–everyone in the oil and gas space, that is. Two weeks ago TC Energy (formerly TransCanada), a huge midstream/pipeline company, issued its first quarter update and held a conference call with analysts. We’re just now learning about some of the chatter coming from that update–very interesting chatter. LNG was a hot topic–flowing more molecules, especially Marcellus/Utica molecules–to LNG export facilities along the Gulf Coast. TC Energy CEO Francois Poirier said during a conference call that roughly one-quarter (25%) of all the molecules that flow to U.S. LNG export facilities get to those facilities by traveling through TC’s pipelines.
Another day, another deal from Energy Transfer (ET) in signing up customers to accept shipments of LNG produced by ET’s yet-to-be-constructed LNG export facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana located on the Calcasieu ship channel. Yesterday we told you ET had signed up Singapore’s Gunvor to accept 2.0 million tonnes (MT) per year (see 
Pipeline giant Energy Transfer (builder of the Rover and Mariner East pipelines here in the M-U) is planning a large-scale LNG export facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana located on the Calcasieu ship channel. The project will convert Energy Transfer’s existing Lake Charles LNG import and regasification terminal to become an LNG export facility. In March, ET announced it had signed a pair of 20-year deals with ENN, a Chinese company, to deliver a total of 2.7 million tonnes (MT) per year to the Chinese Communists (see 
In March Joe Biden announced a deal with Europe to deliver more LNG to the Continent, starting this year (see