U.S. LNG exports edge up in January 2021

The United States liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities have continued to up their LNG export volumes in the first month of the year 2021.

The U.S. Department of Energy reported export volumes of 308.1 Billion cubic feet in January 2021. The volumes increased 1.3 per cent over December 2020 and 23.5 per cent mora than January 2020.

In January 2021, a total of 93 cargoes departed the U.S. LNG export plants. This compares to 90 cargoes shipped in December 2020 and 79 cargoes shipped in January 2020.

Cheniere’s Sabine Pass shipped 35 cargoes while the company’s Corpus Christi facility added 16 cargoes. Freeport LNG plant shipped 18 cargoes with the Cameron LNG plant adding 17 cargoes. Cove Point added a further seven cargoes while no cargoes were exported from the Elba Island facility.

DoE further noted that Japan was the top importer of U.S. LNG volumes with 64.3 Bcf received. A total of 55.9 Bcf landed in South Korea and 42.5 Bcf was delivered to China.

Turkey and the United Kingdom closed the group of the top five importers of U.S. LNG that snapped up 68.3 per cent of U.S. volumes in January 2021. Turkey imported 26.2 Bcf of U.S. LNG volumes while 21.4 Bcd landed in the UK.

The Department of Energy added that the average price of exported LNG slipped to $5.85 per mmBtu from $6.14 per mmBtu reported in December 2020.

Out of the six exporting plants in the United States, Dominion’s Cove Point had the highest price at $6.82 per mmBtu.

Since the United States started exporting domestically-produced LNG in February 2016, a total of 1,987 cargoes reached destinations in 36 countries.

Additionally, 607 cargoes on ISO containers departed the United States during the same period adding a further 1.7 billion cubic feet of LNG also bumping the number of destinations to 39.

South Korea remains the top importer of U.S. LNG with 297 cargoes received totaling 1,034.8 Bcf. This corresponds to 16 per cent of total U.S. LNG exports.