U.S. natural gas gas exports to Mexico via pipeline fell on a year/year basis in 2022 for the first time since 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
DOE compiles a quarterly report on the North American natural gas trade.
Gas flows to Mexico dipped to 5.7 Bcf/d in 2022 from 5.9 Bcf/d in 2021. “Exports to Mexico fell in every month relative to 2021, except for January and February,” DOE researchers said.
The average price of gas exports to Mexico increased by 15.7% to $6.26/MMBtu.
Nonetheless,“U.S. exports to Mexico have grown substantially in the past 20 years, especially in the past five years,” the DOE team said. “Growing demand for power generation and industrial uses in Mexico and an increase in pipeline capacity has been widely cited as the main drivers for this trend.”
Rio Grande City, Brownsville, and Presidio, TX, were the three leading exit points for natural gas pipeline exports bound for Mexico during the year, researchers said. These three points saw exports of 547 Bcf, 329 Bcf and 226 Bcf, respectively.
No company exported more natural gas from the United States during the fourth quarter than CFE International LLC (CFEi), the U.S. based fuel marketing arm of Mexico’s Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE).
CFEi exported 262,202 MMcf or about 2.9 Bcf/d to Mexico during 4Q2022, up from 240,547 MMcf in the same quarter of 2021, DOE data show.
The United States sent 65.3% of its pipeline gas exports to Mexico during the fourth quarter, with the remaining 34.7% flowing to Canada. Exports via pipeline accounted for 44.2% of total U.S. natural gas exports, while the remaining 55.8% left the country in the form of LNG.
U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico fell by 4.9% year/year during the fourth quarter, while pipeline exports to Canada rose by 1.2%.
U.S. pipeline exports overall rose by 4.4% year/year during the final three months of 2022, while U.S. gas exports overall dropped 1.2%.
For full-year 2022, the United States sent 68% of its pipeline gas exports to Mexico and 32% to Canada.
The DOE team noted that U.S. gas exports to Mexico and Canada “both are dwarfed” by U.S. gas imports from Canada, which rose 7.4% year/year to average 8.5 Bcf/d during 2022.
U.S. liquefied natural gas exports, meanwhile, continued to grow at a faster pace than pipeline deliveries into the country from Canada, which once dominated cross-border traffic in North America.
LNG shipments rose 8.5% to 10.6 Bcf/d last year, up from 9.7 Bcf/d in 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The top four LNG destinations – France, the UK, Spain and the Netherlands – accounted for 41% of last year’s shipments after Europe emerged as the leading U.S. LNG buyer following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Canadian gas exports to the United States remain below record levels that exceeded 10 Bcf/d in 2002 and 2007, before horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing swelled U.S. gas supplies and helped give rise to LNG export projects in the Lower 48 states.
The average price of U.S. LNG exports delivered to 39 countries was $11.79/MMBtu last year, up by 61% from 2021. LNG had widely varying values on diverse overseas markets, ranging in 2022 from $8.54 in Pakistan to $19.27 in Germany.
U.S. pipeline exports to Canada grew slightly, by just 1.1% to 959.6 Bcf, or 2.6 Bcf/d in 2022. But the average price of gas exports to Canada jumped 68% to $6.37 last year.
Overall, U.S. natural gas exports by pipelines and LNG tankers increased by 3.5% to 6.89 Tcf, or 18.9 Bcf/d in 2022.
