The United States is on course to surpass the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2023, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, which noted the United States and Qatar both exported 81.2 million tons of LNG last year.
In a year when large economies in Europe and Asia scrambled to source enough supply for heating and power generation, the United States was sitting on a bevy of supply amid soaring international prices for natural gas and LNG.
In fact, the United States could have already been the world’s largest exporter of LNG if it weren’t for an explosion and fire in mid-2022 at a key export facility in Freeport, Texas. The incident knocked out about one-fifth of gas export capacity, putting pressure on Europe’s fragile gas supplies….