A second and third facility to export liquefied natural gas to nations that lack a free-trade agreement with the United States have secured all the necessary federal permits to begin operating.
The Energy Department gave the final approval for the Cameron LNG facility in Hackberry, La., on Wednesday to export up to 1.7 billion cubic feet per day of LNG for up to 20 years. The Sempra Energy-owned project joins Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Sabine, La., as the only major ones to have all the paperwork needed to send natural gas to countries without a free-trade deal with the U.S.
“The development of U.S. natural gas resources is having a transformative impact on the U.S. energy landscape, helping to improve our energy security while spurring economic development and job creation around the country,” the DOE said in a statement, noting that its statistics arm, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, is predicting a record 74.56 bcfd of production this year.
The department on Wednesday also gave final approval to Carib Energy LLC to send up to 0.04 bcfd abroad.
Exports of liquefied natural gas — a process that involves cooling the fuel into a liquid and then loading it onto ships — to nations without a free-trade agreement face higher scrutiny from the DOE because they must be in the public interest.
Republicans, centrist Democrats and the energy industry have criticized the pace of Energy Department approvals for the projects, saying that the window for U.S. exporters to take advantage of global markets was closing.
The Energy Department changed its process in response to that pressure by ending “conditional” approvals on the front end of the application process.
While the agency maintains that its new process will allow projects that are more shovel-ready to jump to the front of the application line, some say the department hasn’t gone far enough to speed the process because it still doesn’t have a timeline for making decisions.
“The Energy Department’s approval of this application for exporting natural gas is a positive step, but we still need legislation to expedite the approval of the other pending applications,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said. The Senate has several proposals it could consider, and the House already has passed legislation from Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., that would impose a deadline on approvals.
Not everyone is on board with exporting natural gas. Skeptics, which include some Democrats and manufacturers, have warned that sending too much abroad could raise domestic natural gas prices, undercutting a competitive advantage for energy-intensive manufacturers.
Most analysts, however, say the global market won’t be able to absorb enough U.S. natural gas exports to cause large domestic price increases.
