Kwok W Wan, LONDON: The transformation of the US gas market is almost complete - and next year could see it take the crucial steps towards becoming a significant liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter.
Just 10 years ago, such a change was almost unthinkable. Then, the world’s largest gas market was rushing to build import terminals to supply an expected shortfall in demand. Now, however, the US could now supply up to a fifth of the global market if all proposed export terminals are built. And all this is due to the abundant production from the US’ prolific shale-gas plays, output which is changing the US LNG market in two stages. The first was to meet domestic gas demand and kill the LNG import market. This has happened already. The second stage will – potentially - allow the US to start exporting large volumes of LNG. This could be a...