North America’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity is on track to more than double between 2024 and 2028.
If the 10 projects currently under construction all go ahead as planned, capacity will increase from the current 11.6 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) to 24.4 bcf/d in 2028.
A handful of other projects have also recently reached final investment decision (FID) and are due to start construction this year.
The EIA expects U.S. LNG exports to increase by nearly 2 bcf/d in 2025 as export capacity grows with three new U.S. projects due to begin operations.
On top of this, five additional U.S. projects are due to come online by 2028, along with three projects in Canada and two in Mexico over the same timeframe. These new projects will create a significant demand pull for natural gas.
Canada’s projects will be served by the natural gas fields in Western Canada, while the U.S. and Mexican projects will receive feedgas from the southern U.S. states.
While all new projects have secured off-take deals, this does not guarantee that the export terminals will operate at full capacity.
“Exactly how [LNG] demand manifests itself with a call on U.S. gas as a function of demand internationally as well as competing supply internationally. Those two things will continue to move around,” said Nick Dell’Osso, CEO of Expand Energy, on the company’s Q3 earnings call.
The outlook for North American exporters is promising.
Global gas demand is expected to reach new all-time highs of 405 bcf/d in 2025 and 415 bcf/d in 2026, according to the IEA’s recently-published Global Gas Security Review.
Global benchmarks for LNG pricing rose by around 15% in Q3 2024 compared to Q2 and are expected to stay at a similar level throughout 2025, according to the IEA.
The volume of contracts signed with post-FID projects in the first eight months of 2024 was 4.8 bcf/d, representing a 65% increase compared with the same period in 2023, according to the IEA report.
This bodes well for the North American capacity that is still at the pre-FID stage.
While the five U.S. projects had received preliminary U.S. Department of Energy approval, the future became unclear after the pause on new LNG export approvals in January 2024.
Several projects extended deadlines for first exports, and it was unclear whether the extensions would be granted during the pause (including Mexican projects that require DOE approval if they are to export U.S. gas).
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to lift the pause and allow permits for new LNG exports from next year.
The following U.S. export terminals are most likely to reach FID first because they are most advanced in sales and purchase agreements:
- Venture Global’s CP2
- Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi Stage 4
- Delfin LNG
- Energy Transfer’s Lake Charles LNG
- Kimmeridge’s Commonwealth LNG
- Woodside’s Louisiana LNG (formerly Driftwood LNG)
Risks to projects
U.S. projects are popular with LNG buyers because they offer competitively priced free-on-board contracts that allow cargoes to be sent anywhere in the world.
However, they are further away from Asian importers — the key market driving demand — than Middle East suppliers.
Qatari export growth between 2026 and 2030 could limit U.S. LNG export arbitrages by undermining prices — raising concerns of a mid-term supply crunch for U.S. exporters.
Qatar’s North Field expansion will increase the nation’s LNG export capacity from 10.3 bcf/d currently to 19 bcf/d by 2030.
“The expansion of Qatari and U.S. export capacity could cause competition for market share between the two to intensify,” according to a report from the Middle East Institute last year after the expansion was approved.
Another risk for U.S. LNG projects is new tariffs imposed by the incoming Trump administration especially for the LNG projects with signed sales and purchase agreements with Chinese importers. A 25% steel tariff implemented in 2018 led to significant price increases for LNG projects. President-elect Donald Trump has stated that one of his first executive orders after taking power would be to put tariffs on all goods entering the U.S. from Mexico and Canada.
Trump also threatened China with additional tariffs, raising concerns of another trade war between the two countries. In 2019, LNG exports from the U.S. to China came to a halt because of the tariffs.