The boom in liquefied natural gas facilities along the Gulf Coast is outpacing the market, FuelFix.com reports.
Research firm Wood Mackenzie says energy companies are building or have proposed so many export terminals that they can’t all be successful. At full build-out, LNG capacity could quadruple current production.
“The numbers proposed far exceed what the world realistically needs,” says Alex Munton, the company’s principal analyst of LNG in the Americas. “They can’t all go ahead.”
LNG companies are building four export terminals now at Sabine Pass, Cameron, Freeport and Corpus Christi, including 13 large-scale trains, with capacity of 53 million metric tons per year or about 7.3 billion cubic feet per day, Wood Mackenzie says.
Three trains are finished. The next 10 are all due to begin exporting over the next two years. And it’s far from the end of LNG construction. Three other LNG projects—at Golden Pass, Lake Charles and Magnolia—have already picked up their federal authorizations to start building. Another 11 have submitted applications for federal review.
