May 31, 2019
The USA authorities announced that LNG is the freedom gas, which carries with itself freedom, democracy better than the American soldiers do. At the same time, two representatives of the US Department of Energy called American LNG “freedom gas” and “molecules of American freedom”. Mark Manezes, US Under Secretary of Energy announced that export capacity increase will have “pivot significance for spreading of the freedom gas through the world”. According to him, owing to American gas, the USA and people around the globe will have “cleaner air”.
In his turn, Steven Winberg, Assistant Secretary of Fossil Energy announced that American gas export capacity increase to the world markets is necessary for “supplying the world with clean energy, also for supporting the energy security of the US allies all over the world.”
“This allows the molecules of American freedom to be exported all over the world” – the Ministry’s site cites Winberg.
It will look just like at a fuelling station: “Which one would you like: non-freedom gas for 200 or freedom gas for 400$?” It is more expensive, for the “freedom” was added to the cost of “the freedom gas.” And, whoever wouldn’t buy American “freedom molecules” and buy cheaper “aggressive molecules” from Russia instead, they will be strangled up by the “freedom hand of the market” and they will have a security shot into their heads by “democracy”.
As they say, the choice between the “freedom gas” or “humanitarian bombs” – it is up to you to decide!
The Americans did not feel the irony in the jokes in Internet-forums, where people called American gas “freedom, democratic gas” and took them seriously.
Currently, the US LNG is only 2% of the EU gas consumption. But their aim is to take it to 4% by 2023. In other words, it is still talking about nothing. The main thing here is that such gas will be purchased only for households. The industry will continue using the piped gas from Russia for it is cheaper and the supplies are more reliable.
The Gazprom corporate journal has recently published an article with an analysis of the US gas supplies status. A total export was around 30 billion cubic metres, while net export was just over 10 billion cubic metres. Given its low calorie content, this figure is less than this. In reality, export comes from import and pumping from gas storage facilities.
Americans are talking about potential expansion to 200 billion cubic metres. But, in the history, they have had a couple of cases, when they implemented a couple of absolutely wrong strategies:
- they initially liberalised the gas market, while they did not have gas at all, which led to deficit in California (having said that, there is still deficit of gas there, though they are very close to large gas mining areas);
- then they build LNG terminals, but then it turned out that there was nobody to use them;
- now, they are building gas liquefaction plants, which are uncompetitive in the large scheme of things.
In addition, not everything is clear with availability of gas – they say there is ample amounts of it, and then it turns out there is not much of it (for 10-12 years at current mining rates). In other words, by the time all the plants are constructed, the amount of gas may not be sufficient for all of the plants. And now, at allegedly surplus amounts of gas (which applies to both the USA and Australia) they suffer from local deficit in regional markets.
Sources:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-authorizes-additional-lng-exports-freeport-lng
Translated into English by Muhiddin Ganiev