Trump Energy Agenda Will Have A Heavy Natural Gas Focus

With his slate of senior nominees largely in place, the focus of the transition planning by President-elect Donald Trump’s team moves to policy. Where energy policy is concerned, the future of natural gas and liquefied n

atural gas (LNG) exports will become an area of key focus.

The former and future president repeatedly pledged to reverse the LNG permitting “pause” invoked last January by President Joe Biden, a move that has been heavily criticized by the industry as setting back the growth of a booming domestic business that had attracted heavy global demand over the previous few years. That demand was initially focused on Asian markets, with more than 70% of U.S. cargoes moving to Asian markets until early 2022.

But, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of that year, most US cargoes were re-routed to European allies since as events like the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream I and II pipelines and sanctions targeting Russia led those countries to look elsewhere for their natural gas needs. The rapid rise in European demand led the US to become the world’s largest LNG exporting nation by the end of 2023.