DAVID BLACKMON: Why The 10-Year Anniversary Of US LNG Is Worth Celebrating

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the chart at this link, a friend posted on X this week.

The chart in question is the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s graph on U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) gross exports from 2015 to 2027.  It starts at a big fat zero in 2015, creeps up to about 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfd) by 2017, then skyrockets: 4 Bcfd in 2018, 6 in 2019, 8 in 2020, 10 in 2021, 12 in 2022, 14 in 2023, 16 in 2024, 18 in 2025, and it’s forecasted to hit 20 Bcfd by 2027. That’s not just a line on a page; it’s a testament to American ingenuity, shale revolution grit, and the ineffectiveness of those who tried to stop it.

I’m old enough to remember – heck, I wrote about it in real time – when several European countries, led by the ever-enlightened France, were scrambling for legal ways to ban imports of American LNG back in 2016. Why? Because most of the gas came from that supposedly dirty word: fracking.

But the world changes — fast-forward a decade, and those same nations are guzzling U.S. LNG like it’s fine Bordeaux, all while patting themselves on the back for ditching Russian gas. Is it hypocrisy? Well, sure, but some aspects of the world never do change.

The key milestone came 10 years ago when, on Feb. 24, 2016, Cheniere Energy Inc. shipped its first cargo of shale gas-derived LNG from the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana. That inaugural load aboard the Asia Vision headed to Brazil – a trivia tidbit for you energy nerds. At the time, the U.S. was still a net importer of natural gas, reliant on foreign supplies to keep the lights on. But thanks to the fracking boom in places like the Permian Basin and Marcellus Shale, the nimble, innovative U.S. oil and gas industry flipped the script.

By 2023 – a blink-of-an-eye span of just seven years – America had become the world’s biggest LNG exporter, pumping out roughly a quarter of global supply. And with new projects firing up, projections show the U.S. claiming about a third of the market by 2030. The economic and geopolitical benefits this shifted reality provides are, again, impossible to overstate.

And demand is exploding. Natural gas is the perfect dance partner for intermittent renewables – wind and solar need a reliable backup, and LNG is the agile form that flows across oceans where pipelines cannot tread. No wonder communities worldwide are turning to it for cleaner, dependable energy.

This 10-year triumph couldn’t have come at a better time. It coincides almost to the day with the four-year mark of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, a war that could’ve crippled global energy chains.

Remember the doomsayers predicting blackouts and sky-high prices across the European continent? Instead, American LNG rode to the rescue. Europe’s intake of U.S. natural gas jumped from a measly 5% of EU demand in 2021 to over 27% today, seamlessly replacing Putin’s pipelines. Last month, the European Union slapped a ban on Russian gas imports — a move that would’ve been suicidal without access to U.S. LNG. Cleaner, reliable, and fracked right here at home: It’s the energy equivalent of a lifeline.

But let’s not sugarcoat the battles fought to get here. Cheniere’s export license and the LNG wave that followed faced relentless opposition from climate alarm zealots and bureaucratic busybodies – the same crowd that cheered the Biden administration’s 2023 moratorium on new LNG export approvals.

Had those opponents won, the global energy picture would be radically different. Analysis from S&P Global crunches the numbers: LNG exports underpin nearly 500,000 U.S. jobs and inject $1.3 trillion into our GDP. And get this – despite all that exporting, domestic natural gas prices remain among the lowest in the industrialized world, thanks to our vast shale reserves. It’s proof positive that abundance breeds affordability, not scarcity.

A decade later, the lesson is crystal clear: When America unleashes its energy potential – fracking, drilling, exporting – the world becomes more secure, economies thrive, and absurdities get called out. We’ve redrawn the global gas landscape, turning potential crises into opportunities. It’s a key illustration of American Energy Dominance on a global scale.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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