U.S. natural gas trade groups this week unveiled a study to demonstrate that American LNG is mostly better for the environment than competing fossil fuels in overseas markets as they continue to push back against the Biden administration’s pause on export project authorizations.
“American natural gas is not only critical to our economy, but it will help the world meet its climate goals,” said Anne Bradbury, CEO of the American Exploration and Production Council (AXPC) at a Washington, DC, event on Tuesday to release the report. “In most cases, U.S. LNG is cleaner than pipeline gas for Europe and Asia, and in all cases, it’s cleaner than heavier carbon fuels such as coal and Russian piped gas.”
AXPC and LNG Allies sponsored the study, which was started in 2021 and conducted by Berkeley Research Group LLC (BRG). It examined the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of liquefied natural gas and competing fossil fuels for power generation in eight European countries and five Asian countries that represented the top markets for U.S. exports in 2022.
BRG found that the average GHG emissions of coal were more than twice as high as U.S. LNG in both Europe and Asia. Norwegian pipeline gas exported to Europe, now the continent's largest supplier, was cleaner with about three-quarters of the emissions of U.S. LNG. But the average GHG emissions of gas coming from Russia were more than a third higher than U.S. LNG.
In Asia, average GHG emissions of pipeline gas were more than four times higher than U.S. LNG in the case of pipeline supplies from Turkmenistan and slightly higher than U.S. LNG for pipeline gas from Russia, according to the study.
BRG analyzed U.S. LNG emissions from the upstream, midstream and power generation segments of the value chain, including natural gas production, liquefaction, shipping and regasification, among other things. It also analyzed the production and transportation of pipeline gas and coal supplies. The results, which utilized 2022 data from government agencies and multilateral organizations, found emissions were largely concentrated downstream in power generation.
The research found that a single U.S. LNG cargo would have saved 174,000-469,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions compared to coal in the eight European countries that were studied. In the five Asian nations, one cargo would have saved between 225,000 and 538,000 tons of CO2e, according to BRG.
The research came partly in response to the Biden administration’s decision to pause new federal LNG project authorizations in January so the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) could review policies to determine whether more exports are in the public interest. DOE said it would update its project reviews to include how LNG projects impact the environment, energy security and domestic prices.
BRG’s Christopher Goncalves, managing director of the firm’s energy and climate practice, stressed that BRG’s study was done objectively and called it a “dispassionate analysis.”
“This is not a political study, although it lands in the middle of a political firestorm,” he said Tuesday during a review of the results.
Environmentalists widely cited research released by Cornell University methane researcher Robert Howarth last year that found LNG exports are worse than burning coal over a 20-year period largely because of leaks across the value chain. That research was said to influence the administration’s pause as Biden looks to court green voters in an election year.
DOE also has commissioned multiple environmental studies on LNG, most recently in a 2019 update that found LNG exports for power generation in Europe and Asia would not increase GHG emissions compared to coal.
“We are at a much different place today because we have more than eight years of real world operating data,” said LNG Allies CEO Fred Hutchison during Tuesday’s event.
The first LNG cargo from the Lower 48 was shipped in 2016. Since then, Hutchison said more than 5,850 cargoes carrying 18.4 Tcf of natural gas have been shipped to three dozen countries. The United States is now the world’s largest LNG exporter.
Hutchison said the LNG buildout and the 2015 repeal of the U.S. crude export ban have transformed energy markets and have helped to guarantee global energy security.
However, regulators have paused LNG export reviews amid an unprecedented wave of new projects. In addition to the 94 million metric tons/year (mmty) of U.S. LNG export capacity in operation, another 79 mmty is under construction and 246 mmty more is in various stages of development, according to NGI’s North American LNG Export Project Tracker.
The pause has rankled the industry. At least seven projects in the United States and Mexico under DOE jurisdiction – and considered commercially advanced – could be impacted in the near term, according to an NGI review of pending projects. That amounts to a combined 9.3 Bcf/d in export capacity under increased regulatory risk.
DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday that she expected the agency’s latest study on the impacts of LNG to be completed “around the end of the year.” She has suggested previously that the pause could be lifted by early next year.
