LNG

The US Department of Energy has issued a rule to exclude some licensing and environmental requirements for liquefied natural gas export projects that had previously been required in a show of support for the energy industry by the Administration of President Donald Trump.

The rule, which the Department of Energy issued in a pre-publication notice in the Federal Register, frees LNG export and import license applications from including environmental reviews that had been required under an environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act.

The DoE said it was updating its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing procedures pertaining to authorizations issued under the Natural Gas Act.

“These changes will improve the efficiency of the DoE decision-making process by saving time and expense in the NEPA compliance process and eliminating unnecessary environmental documentation for these actions that the DoE has determined normally do not have significant effects,” said the filing to be published in the Federal Register on December 4, 2020.

The DoE said in the notice that the rule would “save time and expense in the NEPA compliance process”.

The rule is effective 30 days after December 4 Federal Register publication.

Analysts said there was a possibility that a new President could overturn the DoE ruling, but the outcome of the November Presidential election is still unclear amid evidence of poll fraud, which has shocked many people in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East and lowered their regard for American fairness.

The Trump Administration has overseen a surge in natural gas development and US energy independence as the nation has become the world’s third-largest LNG exporter after being an net importer before the shale revolution.

The DoE rule would not affect environmental reviews by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the other government office that reviews LNG projects.

President Trump has supported supplying US allies with LNG and the largest recipients of cargoes have been to countries like South Korea and Japan as well as European countries which have been taking US LNG cargoes as an available alternative to Russian pipeline natural gas.

The Energy Information Agency declared the US the third-largest LNG exporter in May 2019, overtaking Malaysia, after shipments reached a new peak of 4.7 billion cubic feet per day.

The US has six export plants on stream, Sabine Pass and Cameron LNG in Louisiana, Corpus Christi and Freeport in Texas, as well as Cove Point In Maryland and Elba Island in Georgia.

Other projects are under development and about half a dozen are likely to be constructed in the next five years, mainly on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Lousiana. 

Tellurian Inc, the developer of the Driftwood LNG export plant in Louisiana and its three affiliated pipelines, received a draft environmental impact statement from US regulators to stay on track for a start-up in 2023.

March 29 (LNGJ) – Two energy industry groups in Washington DC, the US Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) and the US Center for Liquefied Natural Gas (CLNG), released statements on the rescinding by a White House order of speculative estimates on environmental issues limiting energy projects. Dena E. Wiggins, President and Chief Executive of the NGSA, said: “The existing National Environmental Policy Act project review process is already stringent, extensive and thorough.  By attempting to include unquantifiable and speculative upstream impacts in an expanded guidance, the Council on Environmental Quality risked hindering development of the very infrastructure that has enabled natural gas to reduce emissions.”

The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a Washington-based industry lobbying group has praised a court’s rejection of repeated challenges by the environmental group, the Sierra Club, to the nation’s LNG export projects.