Established LNG project operator Chevron bought out two minority stakeholders in the Kitimat LNG export project located in British Columbia, Canada in a deal announced on Christmas Eve.
Chevron’s financial strength, LNG operational experience and marketing expertise could help the project reach important sales and purchase offtake agreements with buyers. Keep reading →
Global natural gas demand is expected to steadily increase in the coming decades as developing economies continue growing and the West uses more of the fuel. Established energy trade patterns are also expected to shift eastward to emerging market demand centers as more gas is produced in the western hemisphere. Business activity at one of the world’s major engineering firms appears to be evolving in step with these emerging energy market trends.
“The best way to get $8 [natural] gas is to act like it’s going to be $3,” Dean Oskvig, President and CEO of Black & Veatch’s energy business recently told Breaking Energy. Increasing US unconventional gas reserves and output, which have kept US prices below historical norms, could in spur consumption and shift supply/demand fundamentals so that prices rapidly increase. The threat remains unrealized for now, with natural gas prices still near historic lows. Keep reading →
With global LNG demand projected to exceed supply by a wide margin, the prospects for North American exports of liquefied natural gas are exceptionally strong. But an unexpected development has raised a question about Canadian participation in this emerging export opportunity.
The question is: Will the Canadian government decide to block any of the pending acquisitions of its E&P players by foreign energy majors? Keep reading →
On the surface, LNG appears to represent a new opportunity where easy profits are for the taking. In reality, producing and delivering LNG is a difficult business, and that business will only get harder as time goes on.
Unlike natural gas, where prices are established regionally, LNG is becoming a global commodity. Market prices depend on global supplies and demand. It is expected supplies will remain constrained for the next three years. Keep reading →
Memo to: Jim Lehrer, PBS; Candy Crowley, CNN; Bob Schieffer, CBS
In re: Energy questions you should be asking when you moderate the upcoming October Presidential debates Keep reading →
Steams rises from the Kawasaki natural gas power station in Kawasaki city, Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo on August 25, 2011.
Japan’s Fukushima disaster, with the subsequent shutdown of most Japanese nuclear power plants, mean US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Asia will be profitable to 2020 – but maybe not beyond. Keep reading →
Coal that’s being priced out of the US market by cheap natural gas is being burned instead in Europe, where it’s cheaper than natural gas with prices traditionally linked to oil.
The resulting pressure is beginning to break down those links, and the differential between natural gas prices in the US and Europe could diminish significantly before any US liquefied natural gas (LNG) can be exported. Keep reading →
Exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US will raise domestic natural gas prices little – and possibly not at all – because the international market won’t take enough LNG to make a difference.
That was the conclusion of three economists who separately studied international LNG prospects. They presented their results to the International Natural Gas Workshop sponsored by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) in Washington DC recently. Keep reading →
Ten major natural gas export terminal projects are sparking a debate over the complicated balance between low domestic prices and the health of natural gas producers facing contracting returns on their investment in new production.
Would US exports of liquefied natural gas support an industry that’s struggling to produce the fuel at record-low prices, or would they deprive gas users of the benefits of those super-low rates? Keep reading →
Natural gas exports are clearly in the US national interest, concludes a year-long Brookings Institution study, and the Department of Energy should approve the nine export applications now pending.
All the projects won’t get built because there’s not a big enough global market for all the liquefied natural gas they could produce, said Charles Ebinger, Director of the Brookings’ Energy Security Initiative, who led the study team. Keep reading →
