US LNG exports in the spotlight ahead of Trump 2.0US LNG exports in the spotlight ahead of Trump 2.0
With the change in US Presidential administrations less than two weeks away, policies regarding LNG are in the spotlight.
January 14, 2025

With shifts in the geopolitical landscape following the February 2022 commencement of the war in the Ukraine, the US has moved to the position of the world’s leading LNG exporter.
In early 2024, the Biden team put a stop to new approvals of export licenses for LNG - with the aim of looking closely at environmental impacts of deals that had been in the works - but had not been approved by Department of Energy (DOE), which can turn on the switch on, or not, for exports). For the mid-2020s, the future for previously approved projects looks to be solid.
RBN Energy, in a recent blog posting, wrote that: “While construction issues can cause timing delays at the terminals, the three near-term projects appear to be secure in their path forward, but things become more uncertain further out. Regulatory and court challenges have made it increasingly difficult for new projects to take FID and, given that court challenges actually happen after projects are approved —sometimes even after FID — it’s a very unsettled world right now. “
Analysts at Poten, looking farther ahead, are taking a brighter view of prospects once Trump comes into office. According to Jason Feer, Poten’s Global Head of Business Intelligence, “We’re in the middle of a golden age for US LNG. I think there’s clearly interest in developing more capacity,” In a recent speech, he said: “People have signed with projects that haven’t reached a final investment decision (FID), that’s an expression of interest. I think the Trump administration is going to do whatever it can to encourage that.
One project still in the type of limbo alluded to by RBN Energy, with the potential to be rescued by Trump administration actions, is the Venture Global export terminal. Its $28 billion “CP2 project”, with a nameplate export capacity of 20 million metric tons a year of LNG, it would be the largest in the States, had been on track for a 2026 opening in Calcasieu, Louisiana near Lake Charles.
Initially, it had received approvals from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)- the which needs to approve prior the DOE). In late November, in the face of objections from environmental groups, FERC pulled back- setting aside its prior authorisation.
LNG export policy is intertwined with politics. Jason Bordoff, the Founding Director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, wrote recently, in the magazine Foreign Policy, that: “Russian natural gas stopped flowing to Europe via a pipeline through Ukraine that has operated for a half century, just days after Ukraine received its first shipment of LNG from the United States. These simultaneous milestones highlighted the critical role in Europe’s energy security now played by American gas exports, which surged to record levels last December.”
The Druzhba pipeline had been shut down on New Years Day. The LNG shipment into the Ukraine refers to a cargo that was sent to Revithoussa LNG terminal, in Greece’s Gulf of Megara (to be regasified and then sent onward), aboard 155,000 cu m Gaslog Savannah, which had loaded in Cameron, Louisiana earlier in December.
The receiving terminal had been upgraded- beginning in 2022 after the war had started, with an eye towards receiving such LNG imports. In mid-2024, D. Trading, a company importing through the terminal at Revithoussa and affiliated with DEFSA- the terminal operator, had signed a deal which contemplates that it would distribute LNG, supplied by Venture Global’s facilities in the US Gulf, into Eastern Europe and Ukraine.
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