U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports grew to record highs during the first half of 2021 (42% more than exports a year ago), the federal government reported this week, strengthening U.S. energy security and sharpening our geopolitical position.
Surging to 9.6 billion cubic feet (bcf) per day, LNG exports were shipped primarily to Asia, Europe, and Africa to ease energy supply constraints and soaring prices as demand for affordable, reliable and cleaner energy grows worldwide.
“Natural gas demand in the spring continued to rise amid low post-winter inventories, which contributed to unseasonably high natural gas prices. The high prices prompted a higher demand for more flexible LNG supplies, particularly from the United States,” EIA analysts wrote.
Delivering clean, abundant and low-cost American natural gas to markets around the world presents us with the opportunity – and responsibility – to take a leadership role in reducing global energy poverty and help less fortunate nations find a new pathway towards energy abundance and economic growth, while also reducing emissions.
Some countries, like Russia, use energy as a geopolitical weapon, though, posing severe national security threats for the U.S. and our allies.
A group of U.S. Senators on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), wrote to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Wednesday describing the national security threats of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline because it “will increase Vladimir Putin’s malign influence over Europe, destabilize Ukraine’s fragile security, and encourage further Russian aggression.”
Despite promises from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “do whatever we can to prevent completion [of Nord Stream 2],” President Biden recently greenlighted the natural gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany, threatening American energy security while enabling Russian energy dominance to prosper.
“Nord Stream 2 will disconnect Ukraine from gas supplies, which means “disconnecting” us from at least USD 3 billion a year. We will have nothing to pay for the Ukrainian army,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last month.
To deliver natural gas to Germany, the pipeline will skip over Ukraine and rob it of important economic and financial benefits while forcing German consumers to utilize Russian-produced natural gas, which carries a 65% higher methane intensity rate than U.S. gas, per International Energy Agency data.
Further, enabling Nord Stream 2’s construction “has created political, military and energy threats for Ukraine and Central Europe, while increasing Russia’s potential to destabilize the security situation in Europe,” Ukraine and Poland’s Foreign Affairs Ministers wrote in a joint statement last week, “perpetuating divisions among NATO and European Union member states.”
Rather than ceding ground to Russian-controlled energy, European and NATO allies can (and should) forge agreements with American-based producers to break these adversarial ties.
Poland’s state-controlled gas importer PGNiG, in fact, announced an agreement this week to import more American LNG “to help meet increased gas demand in Poland as well as to eliminate the need for Russian pipeline gas imports.”
As bi-partisan U.S. energy leaders, elected officials, and independent researchers have noted, we must leverage this unique position for world energy leadership through enhanced infrastructure development and recognition of the overwhelming foreign policy, national security, economic and environmental benefits of domestic natural gas.
