21st Century: America's Century (Again) -- This Time -- Energy -- December 19, 2022

America's century: link here.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The United States has become a global crude oil exporting power over the last few years, but exports have not exceeded its imports since World War II. That could change next year.

Sales of U.S. crude to other nations are now a record 3.4 million barrels per day (bpd), with exports of about 3 million bpd of refined products like gasoline and diesel fuel. The United States is also the leading liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, where growth is expected to soar in coming years.

But the United States consumes 20 million barrels of crude a day, the most in the world, and its output has never exceeded 13 million bpd. Until recently, the idea that it would be anything but a big crude importer was folly.

Last month, U.S. government data showed net U.S. crude oil imports fell to 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd), the lowest since record keeping began in 2001. That is down sharply from five years ago, when the United States imported more than 7 million barrels per day.

RBN Energy: Sempra will soon expand its LNG export capacity with Port Arthur LNG, part 5. Archived.

Thanks to a warm start to the season and low Asian demand for LNG, Europe has so far been able to stave off a worst-case scenario for natural gas supply this winter. Still, the European market is keeping a keen eye on the years ahead, when the continent will need to rely on new sources of LNG to meet demand and refill inventories with little chance of any Russian gas. The call for more LNG has ushered in a new wave of export-project development, with two U.S. projects reaching a positive final investment decision (FID) this year and LNG offtakers in Europe and elsewhere committing to an incredible 37 MMtpa (4.9 Bcf/d) of long-term contracts from pre-FID sites in North America. This momentum has revived a number of projects from the COVID-induced wasteland, including Sempra’s Port Arthur LNG. In today’s RBN blog, we continue our series on U.S. LNG projects by taking a closer look at Port Arthur, the one most likely to take FID next.

So far in this series we’ve looked at four different U.S. projects. Two of them — Plaquemines LNG and Corpus Christi Stage III, the subjects of Part 1 and Part 2 — have both now taken FID. In Part 4, we discussed NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG, which closed multiple sales and purchase agreements (SPAs) over the summer and has now sold 75% of its Phase 1 capacity. NextDecade, which is still securing offtakers and financing for the project, raised $85 million in September through a private placement equity sale. Although taking perhaps a little longer than expected, the project remains likely to move forward at this point.

If you’re thinking, “Hey, you skipped Part 3,” there’s a reason for that. That blog covered Tellurian’s controversial Driftwood LNG, which at the time had already begun construction despite not having secured full financing. Since then, Tellurian and Driftwood publicly suffered a major setback after losing two of the project’s three offtakers and rescinding a bond offering due to lack of interest. But Tellurian’s drama has more to do with its project structure than the wider LNG market environment, and other projects continue to see support and make progress toward FID, including the project we’re looking at today, Port Arthur, which in the past few months has leap-frogged several other projects in development and is closing in on FID in the next few months.

Sempra already owns and operates Cameron LNG in Louisiana and has the first-ever Mexican LNG export terminal, ECA LNG, which is now under construction, with first LNG expected in 2025. The company also has a number of other projects under development, including another Mexican project, Vista Pacifico LNG, and potential expansions of Cameron and ECA. Port Arthur has been in development for a number of years and received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authorization in April 2019. Sempra had a non-binding equity agreement with Saudi Aramco for a 25% stake in the project and 5 MMtpa (660 MMcf/d) of LNG underpinning Port Arthur’s development but that deal fell apart in 2021. Shortly after, the terminal’s only other customer, PGNiG, also pulled out of its offtake agreement and Sempra paused development on the project. At the time, Sempra was re-evaluating its LNG strategy and project designs. It redesigned the Cameron expansion, necessitating further FERC permitting. That project is likely to move forward eventually, but with the FERC permits pending, Sempra turned back to Port Arthur, focusing on a two-train approach that will enable exports of up to 13.5 MMtpa (1.8 Bcf/d) of LNG, and is now closing in on FID. Sempra has said it is targeting about 10 MMtpa (1.3 Bcf/d) of long-term contracts for Phase 1.

Much more at the link.