US Department of Energy seeks comments on LNG export study

The United States Department of Energy released its Macroeconomic Outcomes of Market Determined Levels of U.S. LNG Exports study, the fifth examining effects of LNG exports on U.S. economy and energy markets.

The DOE issued a notice of availability of the study, and also sought comments on the study, to be submitted by July 27.

The study, performed by NERA Economic Consulting (NERA), examines the probability and macroeconomic impact of various U.S. LNG export scenarios and includes alternative baseline scenarios based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Annual Energy Outlook 2017.

The 2018 LNG Export Study will allow the DOE to evaluate the cumulative impacts of each additional non-FTA application to export LNG on the U.S. economy and energy markets, and assess the likelihood (or probability) of different levels of LNG exports.

Like the four prior studies, the 2018 LNG export study examines the impacts of varying levels of LNG exports on domestic energy markets. The 2018 LNG export study also assesses the likelihood of different levels of ‘unconstrained’ LNG exports, and analyzes the outcomes of different LNG export levels on the U.S. natural gas markets and the U.S. economy as a whole, over the 2020 to 2050 time period.

The study develops 54 scenarios by identifying various assumptions for domestic and international supply and demand conditions to capture a wide range of uncertainty in the natural gas markets.

DOE said it will use the study as well as the comments it receives to aid its determination of the public interest in pending and future non-FTA application proceedings.