EIA announces fall in US natural gas imports

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has announced that net imports of natural gas into the US fell 14% in 2013, continuing a decline that began in 2007.

The EIA believes that robust natural gas production in the US likely displaced imports, which decreased by 8% in 2013 to 2883 billion ft³. Abundant production of natural gas helped reduce US reliance on foreign natural gas and helped maintain a high price differential between domestic and foreign markets outside of North America, increasing interest in the potential export of US LNG.

LNG imports decreased by 45% from the 2012 level to 97 billion ft³ in 2013, the lowest level since 1998. Even though US natural gas prices increased in 2013, they remained unattractive compared with international LNG prices, which were two to four times higher than Henry Hub prices. LNG imports from Trinidad and Tobago and Yemen made up 83% of total LNG imports. LNG imports were lower from almost all trading partners, particularly from Qatar and Trinidad and Tobago, which decreased by 78% and 38% from the previous year’s level to 7 billion ft³ and 70 billion ft³, respectively.

LNG exports, already lower than 2% of total exports, decreased to 3 billion ft³. For the first time, the US also exported a small amount of compressed natural gas (CNG) to Canada by truck, totalling 0.1 billion ft³.

 Adapted from press release by Callum O'Reilly

Read the article online at: https://www.lngindustry.com/liquid-natural-gas/29052014/eia_announces_fall_in_us_natural_gas_imports_677/