Europe Now #1 Customer For US LNG; Overtakes South Korea And Mexico -- January 25, 2019

From SeekingAlpha market news. 

Europe is top buyer of U.S. LNG with winter cargo influx - Reuters

• Europe is now the top buyer of U.S. liquefied natural gas after a near 5x spike in U.S. LNG sales to the continent this winter, overtaking South Korea and Mexico, according to a Reuters analysis, after prices in Asia fell sharply on lower than expected demand while prices in Europe, traditionally seen as a market of last resort, have remained steady.
• U.S. LNG shipments to Europe totaled 3.23M metric tons, or 48 cargoes, in October to January, compared to 700K tons, or nine cargoes, in the year-ago period, bringing the U.S. to second place behind only Qatar as an LNG supplier to Europe.
• U.S. LNG also offers countries an alternative to piped gas and forces Russia to compete on price; Russia's Gazprom  pumps 190B cm, or the equivalent of 145M metric tons/year to Europe, 4x the current capacity of all U.S. LNG export terminals.

Look at that year-over-year increase!

• last year, 700K metric tons = 9 cargoes
• one year later, 3.23 million metric = 45 cargoes

Whenever I see stories like this, I always think back to "Europe at a tipping point" which I first posted  years ago at "the big stories."