The United States is bringing forward by several years the date at which it expects to become a net exporter of natural gas, the country's top energy adviser said on Tuesday in the latest boost for the government's energy independence agenda. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2012 Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) published this summer said exports would overtake imports in 2022.
A revision due out in a few weeks will bring that date forward to the "late teens" of the century - as little as four or five years from now, EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski told Reuters in an interview. He cited continued "robust" domestic production - despite the low prices that are causing pain to many domestic producers. Lower pipeline imports from Canada, a further slowing of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, and full export capacity at the country's only licensed LNG export terminal at Sabine Pass in Louisiana complete the picture.
"The AEO 2013 reference case is going to be published in December and that is going to move that 2022 date in. It'll be in the late teens. So the US is going to be a net exporter sooner than 2022," he said. Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass will not be ready to export until 2016, and there is political opposition to plans for further LNG export terminals. Most of the 11 proposed are, like Sabine Pass, refitted former import facilities that were left high and dry by the United States' shale gas revolution.
Opposition to more licences is mainly based on fears that exports could deprive the country of the competitive advantage bestowed on it by cheap gas, but Sieminski said "this (the new prediction) doesn't require another string of export terminals to be approved". There has been a dramatic turnaround in the US natural gas market, which four years ago was still gearing up to be a major importer.
Record increases in domestic gas output thanks to hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") and horizontal drilling of shale formations and other so-called "unconventional" gas resources have pushed prices way below global levels and evaporated import needs. Those new techniques now deliver far cheaper supplies into the home market and have pushed US gas production to record highs.