For the first time, the United States has become the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in the world, surpassing the exports of its main competitors, Qatar and Australia. The shipments of exported gas have significantly increased.
According to data collected by news agency “Bloomberg,” the United States exported 91.2 million tons of liquefied natural gas last year, reaching a historic level of exports.
Production and exports increased last year due to the reactivation of the natural gas liquefaction plant in Freeport, Texas, which had been inactive for several months following the fire that occurred in June 2022.
On the other hand, Qatar, which was the world’s largest exporter of natural gas in 2022, experienced a 1.9% decrease in its exports last year, marking its first decline in liquefied gas exports since 2016. Qatar ranked third on the list of liquefied gas exporters, following Australia in second place.
Two new liquefied natural gas projects are scheduled to come online in the United States this year. The first project, called Blackmonde, is being developed by Fetcher Global LNG and will be located in Louisiana. The second project, called Golden Pass, is a joint venture between Exxon Mobil Corp and Qatar Petroleum and will be located in Texas. When both projects are fully operational, they are expected to add around 38 million metric tons of liquefied gas to the annual production.
In the parallel field, on Wednesday, Pankaj Jain, the Undersecretary of India’s Ministry of Petroleum, stated that the Indian company “Petronet” is likely to sign an agreement this month to expand its long-term imports of liquefied natural gas from Qatar beyond 2028.
“Petronet, India’s largest gas importer, has a long-term agreement with Qatar to import liquefied natural gas, with a volume of 7.5 million metric tons per year. Other Indian companies associated with Petronet, such as Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp, and GAIL India, have an agreement for 1 million metric tons per year.”
Indian companies had the opportunity to negotiate with Qatar the renewal of agreements for after 2028 until the end of 2023. Jin told journalists, “We are very close to signing the agreement.”
Qatar is one of the world’s largest producers of liquefied natural gas and aims to increase its liquefaction capacity to 126 million metric tons per year by 2027, compared to the current 77 million. It has also signed long-term agreements with major European companies such as Shell, Total Energies, and Eni.
Long-term gas agreements have been signed with the Chinese oil and chemical company “Sinopec” and the national oil company of China, as well as with Bangladesh.
