The United States has rocketed from barely selling any liquefied natural gas (LNG) overseas to becoming the world’s No. 1 supplier.
America's LNG suppliers can thank war in Ukraine for turning the US into the world's #1 exporter.
In the early 2000s, natural gas was relatively scarce at home, and companies were spending billions of dollars to build terminals to import gas from places like Qatar and Australia.
Natural gas is most easily transported by pipeline. To send it across oceans, the gas must be chilled to 260 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, turning it into a liquid. The process of making and shipping liquefied natural gas adds complexity and cost, but if the difference between U.S. natural gas prices and overseas prices is big enough, it is profitable.
Fracking changed everything.
In the 2000s, US companies figured out how to unlock cheap natural gas from shale rock. American companies, led by Cheniere Energy, began spending billions more to convert import terminals into export terminals, and shipments of U.S. gas to other countries surged.
Europe has become the biggest importer of American gas in recent years, enabling the continent to slash by more than half its reliance on Russian gas since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Source: The New York Times
