US cannot meet LNG shortfall, says industry leader

HOUSTON

Business leaders are warning that the United States lacks the infrastructure to alleviate a global LNG shortage caused by the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.

At the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston this week energy leaders said the U.S. LNG industry has the reserves but not the capacity to quickly expand production.

"We will not be able to make that volume up," said Charles Reidl, chief of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas (CLNG), which represents several U.S. giants in the sector.

"It's not that we don't have the resources to do it," he told AFP at CERAWeek. "We don't have the infrastructure to provide it."

In response to US-Israeli strikes Iran has virtually blocked the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 percent of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas flows.

Qatar, the world's second-largest LNG producer, has seen exports hit a brick wall due to the blockade, with Iran also carrying out strikes on its energy facilities.

That has turned attention to the U.S., which in recent years has become the world's leading LNG exporter.

Since 2016, the United States has ramped up LNG production and its exports have increased 30-fold, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Eight LNG export terminals are in operation, eight are under construction and nine more projects have been approved, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Reidl said facilities were running hard, "at about 135 percent" of their usual capacity.

Still, "we have not reached a level of maturity in the U.S. LNG space that we have extra supply available."