The other shoe drops – export of fracked LNG to increase US consumer natural gas prices

Source: Cal. Energy Commission (left), and Wikipedia (right)
We’ve blogged several times about one of the most important under-reported stories in the US press, ALEC joins forces with the Peoples Republic of China-Owned Firm to Enable Export of US Fracked Shale Gas and Oil to China.

The purpose of the Nicaraguan Canal the Chinese plan on building? – the export of U.S. natural gas and other fuel to China and elsewhere.

Now the rest of the story has come out in the trade press – exporting Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe and Asia is projected to increase U.S. natural gas prices to European price levels.  Currently, U.S. gas costs just 40 percent of the European cost.  For more details, check out the link below:


New U.S. LNG Production will Upend Market, Maritime Executive

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, over 58 million households were projected to spend an average of $628 on natural gas last winter.

A 20 percent increase in the cost of natural gas will cost American households over $7 trillion per winter, and a 40 percent increase will take twice out of consumers pockets.

Of course, most of this exported gas will be fracked, so American households will still suffer its air pollution and health issues.  They will also have to deal with the risks of rail transport of LNG, if railroad requests to ship LNG are approved.

This raises lot of questions.  To ask just two:

  • What effect will taking trillions of dollars from American families have on the U.S. economy?
  • How much sense does it make for us to export our scarce energy resources, instead of leaving them in the ground for future use in this country, when they can be extracted without polluting American communities and releasing huge quantities of greenhouse gases?

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent positions of the Moving Forward Network or its members. Errors are the responsibility of the author.