The Telegraph is reporting:
The United States is poised to flood world
markets with once-unthinkable quantities of liquefied natural gas as
soon as this year, profoundly changing the geo-politics of global energy
and posing a major threat to Russian gas dominance in Europe.
"We anticipate becoming big players, and I think we'll have a big
impact," said the Ernest Moniz, the US Energy Secretary. "We're going to
influence the whole global LNG market."
Mr Moniz said four LNG export terminals are under construction and the
first wave of shipments may begin before the end of this year or in
early 2016 at the latest.
“Certainly in this decade, there’s a good chance that we will be LNG
exporters on the scale of Qatar, which is today’s largest LNG exporter,”
he said, speaking on the margins of the IHS CERAWeek energy summit in
Texas.
Qatar exports just over 100
billion cubic meters (BCM), though Australia is catching up fast as the
offshore Gorgon field comes on stream. It may pull ahead of Qatar later
this decade.
Mr Moniz said the surge in
US output from shale fracking has already transformed the global market.
"We would have been importing a lot of LNG by now. Those cargoes would
have gone elsewhere and have in fact had a significant impact in the
European market,” he said.
Gas frackers assembled at the world's
"energy Davos" in Houston said exports could ultimately be much higher,
potentially overtaking Russia as the world's biggest supplier of
natural gas of all kinds.
"We're just fifteen years into a
150-year process," said Steve Mueller, head of Southwestern Energy, the
fourth biggest producer of gas in the US.
The numbers are staggering:
The mile-deep Marcellus basin stretching from West Virginia through
Pennsylvania to New York state is driving the explosive growth.
Interlocking fractures in the rock make it possible for a single well
with advanced technology to extract much more gas than thought possible
just five years ago.
Once thought to be in decline, the
Marcellus alone produces 113 BCM a year. This is roughly equivalent to
Russia's exports to Europe through the Nord Stream, Yamal, and
Brotherhood pipelines.
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