Texas Alliance of Energy Producers Urges Obama to Approve LNG Exports Quickly

The Texas Alliance of Energy Producers (TAEP) called on President Obama on Tuesday to quickly approve the pending export permits of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States and to support legislation in the Congress that also would allow exports of LNG.

“The crisis situation in Ukraine is of grave importance and impacts our national security,” Townes G. Pressler, chairman of TAEP, said.  “It centers around the dependence of Ukraine and much of Europe on natural gas imports from Russia.  Natural gas from the U.S. could be used to compete with Russian gas.”

A March 7, 2014 letter from the Visegrad Group –  Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic – to US leaders highlights the urgency of obtaining other sources of natural gas quickly.

“Despite significant diversification efforts, our dependence on natural gas imports from a single supplier [Russia] is still anywhere between 70-100% in the region and the gas crises of 2006 and 2009 have shown that the region is more vulnerable to energy security risks than most of the European countries,” the letter stated.

“With the current shale gas revolution in the United States, American companies are seeking to export gas, including to Europe,” the letter stated. “But the existing bureaucratic hurdles for the approval of the export licenses to non-FTA countries like the Visegrad countries are a major hurdle. As a recent report of the House Energy and Commerce Committee highlighted, the U.S. now has a window of opportunity to act.”

“The presence of US natural gas would be much welcome in Central and Eastern Europe, and Congressional action to expedite LNG exports to America’s allies would come at a critically important time for the region,” the letter continued. “Furthermore US export of LNG would not only meet the energy security challenge of the Visegrad countries but that of the wider region as well.”

The “bureaucratic hurdles” that were referenced in this plea are political bottlenecks left over from a bygone era and have no place in this fast changing world, Pressler said. “The seriousness of the Russian aggression demands that all diplomatic and economic tools be used to diminish Russia’s threats to the energy supply reductions and pricing increases.”

Pressler said that the economic benefits to Americans expand beyond the obvious advantage of decreasing the nation’s trade deficit. “Jobs of all types are created, income is generated, taxes are paid, and on and on,” he said.

As an association that is the largest state oil and gas association in the nation that represents independent natural gas producers, the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers knows that the production of natural gas from shale formations has rejuvenated the natural gas industry in the United States, Pressler said.

The Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2013 Early Release projects U.S. natural gas production to increase from 23.0 trillion cubic feet in 2011 to 33.1 trillion cubic feet in 2040, a 44% increase. Almost all of this increase in domestic natural gas production is due to projected growth in shale gas production, which grows from 7.8 trillion cubic feet in 2011 to 16.7 trillion cubic feet in 2040.

Because natural gas is a clean-burning fuel and it has a high energy content, it is in high demand by consumers worldwide.  The recent events in Ukraine underscore the need for additional supplies of natural gas in Europe and around the world.

“The real irony to the Ukrainian situation is that the $1 billion loan we have made to them will go to Russia to pay off some of their natural gas debt while our bureaucracy continues to block us from selling them our gas,” Pressler said.

Press Release, March 12, 2014; Image: whitehouse.gov