Davin News Server

... governments and companies are proposing major investments in American 
liquefied natural gas projects.

"We Hear You, Mr. President"

The World Lines Up to Buy American Gas

President Trump's cabinet has been busy rolling back regulations that will 
make it far easier to extract and produce fossil fuels. But who will buy 
them?

Nearly everyone, it turns out, particularly under the threat of tariffs.

At an annual energy-industry conference in Houston, executives spoke openly 
about how companies from around the world are seeking to buy American 
liquefied natural gas as a way of placating Mr. Trump's demands to either 
balance trade or face punitive measures.

Nations with a trade imbalance with the U.S. are "all asking themselves, 
"What can we do to try to level the playing field?"" said Meg O'Neill, chief 
executive of Woodside Energy, Australia's biggest oil and gas company.

They are cutting deals now, she said, in large part "so their government can 
say, "We're taking action. We hear you, Mr. President."" Her characterization 
was echoed by Ryan Lance, chief executive at Conoco/Phillips, one of the 
largest U.S. oil and gas producers, and other speakers at the conference, 
known as CERAWeek by S&P Global.

Since President Trump took office, oil and gas companies from nearly every 
continent have dangled the possibility of investing billions of dollars in 
the United States.

This month Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean companies revived a $44 billion 
idea - long considered all but financially impossible - to build pipelines 
and a giant terminal in Alaska that would export natural gas to Asia. 
Ukraine, eager to preserve its weapons supply from Washington, has signaled 
it will buy more American gas. South Africa, its aid frozen by Mr. Trump, is 
trying to cut a deal to expand U.S. companies" drilling rights in its waters.

Whether all this will translate into firm deals is not yet clear. But the 
potential deals would lock in decades of investment in fossil fuels at a time 
when the global energy transition to cleaner energy sources is faltering. The 
burning of fossil fuels is the main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions 
that are dangerously warming the planet.

Image

President Trump speaking from the podium in Congress.

President Trump addressing Congress earlier this month. He has emphasized 
development of fossil fuels. Credit... Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

South Africa, which had its U.S. aid frozen by an executive order that 
accused it of discriminating against its white citizens, is trying to 
negotiate a new trade deal with Washington. In that deal, the United States 
would get more access to gas exploration in the region, and South Africa 
would buy more of its gas from America, according to a government spokesman.

Ukraine, which is desperately trying to gain Mr. Trump's support as 
negotiations for a peace deal with Vladimir Putin develop, is signaling to 
Washington that it will buy U.S. gas in addition to trying to cut a deal on 
mineral revenues.

Ukraine's moves mirror a wider push in Europe to buy more gas from the U.S. 
as Mr. Trump engages the European Union in tit-for-tat tariffs.

The state-owned gas company in India, one of the world's fastest growing 
markets for gas, said it would either buy a stake in an American L.N.G. plant 
or enter into a new contract for long-term supply.

Speaking at the conference in Houston, the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil 
Company, Sultan al Jaber, who just a year and a half ago presided over the 
annual climate-change negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, said his 
company would also soon announce a major investment in U.S. gas production. 
"Make energy great again, " he told a room full of oil and gas executives.

The negotiations Mr. al Jaber shepherded in 2023 were the first in which all 
nations agreed to 'transition away" from fossil fuels by mid-century. But a 
key clause in the agreement noted that 'transitional fuels" - widely 
acknowledged as a euphemism for gas - would be key to making the transition 
"orderly."

The potential deals pit climate concerns against foreign-policy strategy. 
Expanding gas consumption - purchasing contracts are usually for decades 
worth of fuel - would in many cases complicate carbon-neutrality pledges that 
companies and countries have made.

How Close Are the Planet's Climate Tipping Points?

Earth's warming could trigger sweeping changes in the natural world that 
would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse.

Gas emits less carbon dioxide than oil and coal when burned, but is nearly 
entirely made up of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas. U.S. methane 
emissions have been steadily rising as its gas industry has grown to dominate 
the world's trade in the fuel.

The new U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright, is a former fracking executive. 
In an interview in Houston he said the Biden administration's temporary pause 
in early 2024 on federal approvals for new export terminals had made 
countries wary of investing in U.S. gas, despite the fact that L.N.G. exports 
soared under President Biden.

Mr. Wright said he had been meeting with prospective buyers in Europe and 
Asia and they had all been asking him, "Can you assure me that the United 
States is going to be a long-term reliable supplier?"

Xi Nan, who heads Rystad Energy's L.N.G. research team, said that because of 
the long time-lines for developing any gas project, announcements shouldn't 
be taken as inevitabilities.

"Fundamentally, our forecasts haven't changed in terms of long-term L.N.G. 
demand, " Ms. Xi said. "What's changed is that the forecast for renewable 
energy demand is lower."

As a result, the energy transition "is going to take longer than we thought, 
" she said.