The closing of the Strait of Hormuz stranded tankers from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which together provide 20 percent of global LNG. Asia has been especially hard hit because it imports 80 percent to 90 percent of the supply from the Persian Gulf. The reopening of the strait will not restore all of the lost supply. In mid-March, Iranian missiles knocked out 17 percent of capacity at Qatar’s Ras Laffan refinery, and QatarEnergy’s CEO said repairs could take five years.
The United States has made an aggressive push to be a bigger part of the global LNG market, with Trump seeking to secure major purchase agreements from trade partners like Japan, the EU, and South Korea. But the eight existing US LNG export terminals are already running at full capacity. Although Trump has vowed to bring more capacity online, construction, and permitting of the complex multibillion-dollar facilities take years.
As a result, US exports of LNG, about 15 billion cubic feet of gas per day, are currently limited to only 11 percent to 13 percent of total US natural gas production. The situation leaves the United States with an abundance of its top fuel for electricity even while other countries are scrambling to stretch their supplies.
But American consumers have been coping with sharply rising electricity prices for a host of reasons unrelated to the war—mostly due to the capital build-out by utility companies, in part to accommodate the data center explosion but also to build resilience against wildfire, storms, and other climate change impacts and to replace aging infrastructure.
In their bi-monthly video series, energy analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies contemplated how the best example of US energy independence is almost wholly unnoticed by American consumers because of these other factors.
“So while we’re staring at the precipice of a global energy crisis, or might already be in one, the United States is going to feel that in oil markets, but we are, for the time being, by the nature of the gas system and the bountiful supply here in the United States, insulated against the gas price shocks?” asked Joseph Majkut, director of the CSIS’ Energy Security and Climate Change program.