The impact of US LNG exports on global markets

摘要

Despite its relative maturity as a gas producing province, the USA has defied the expectations of market participants and observers over the past two decades. Figure 9.1 shows the make-up of supply to the US market comprising: US gas production, Canadian pipeline imports (net), net LNG imports, and pipeline exports to Mexico (net). Increasing demand for natural gas in the 1990s was supplied by growing US production but also required an increasing contribution from Canadian pipeline gas imports. US gas production going into decline from 2001 came as something of a shock; the Henry Hub price rose accordingly and served to 'ration' supply for much of the early to mid-2000s. In the early 2000s, the prospect of an apparent future US burgeoning import requirement catalysed the development of new LNG supply projects, notably in Qatar, with the USA as a destination market. US LNG re-gasification import terminal capacity grew from 49.2 bcm/year in 2006 to 186 bcm/year by 2013, equating to some 25 per cent of the gas demand of the USA in 2014.