Potential Consumer Price Impacts of Efforts to Rapidly Expand Exports of Liquefied Natural Gas

[Panich52]

...United States has experienced a natural gas boom that has made it one of the largest natural gas producers in the world. ...

Although these low prices have been a boon for consumers, they pose an economic challenge to domestic producers. Consequently, these producers are eager to find new domestic and foreign markets for natural gas in order to boost demand. Exporting more natural gas will tighten domestic supplies and, in turn, increase U.S. natural gas prices.

The U.S. Department of Energy, or DOE, already has approved several applications to export liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to customers around the globe. ...

...EIA concluded that a surge in LNG exports would cause U.S. natural gas supply prices to rise between 4 percent and 11 percent, on average, ...

Although this could help natural gas producers’ bottom lines, higher prices also could have a significant economic effect on residential, commercial, and industrial consumers of natural gas across the country. The Center for American Progress reviewed the EIA data and found that high levels of LNG exports could increase annual natural gas bills for residential, commercial, and industrial consumers by at least $7 billion per year by 2020 and up to $14 billion per year by 2040.

...To date, companies have filed more than 40 applications with the DOE to export LNG to free trade and non-free-trade countries. ...

...In 2014, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to set an arbitrary 30-day deadline for the DOE’s review of LNG export applications. The 114th Congress is likely to consider similar legislation in early 2015. [I think they were to intro it this week.]

Rest of the story here:

http://tinyurl.com/m3fzkf9

New Range Resources ads include the 'energy independence' myth among their other propaganda. Just how does energy independence correlate w/ exporting? (This also applies to KXL's toxic tar sands from ND.)

[Demeter]

1. And the US has a market all picked out already, to coerce

US works to ease Caribbean dependence on Venezuelan oil
Source: Associated Press

US works to ease Caribbean dependence on Venezuelan oil

AP foreign, Saturday January 24 2015

By BEN FOX

Associated Press= MIAMI (AP) — A decade-long addiction to oil subsidized by Venezuela may be coming to an end for several Caribbean nations, with a nudge from the United States.

Fears that falling oil prices could knock the wheels off the already wobbly economy of oil-dependent Venezuela have sparked apparent interest in alternatives to Petrocaribe, a trade program created by the late President Hugo Chavez that has kept the region dependent on the South American country for energy.

Evidence of that interest will be on display Monday as Caribbean leaders converge in Washington for the first Caribbean Energy Security Summit, hosted by Vice President Joe Biden. Plans for the event have been in the works for months, but with oil recently falling to below $50 a barrel, a sense of urgency has emerged given Venezuela's increasingly precarious situation.

-snip-

All the countries of the region, except Cuba, are expected to participate in closed talks that will involve Biden and other U.S. officials as well as representatives of the European Union, the U.N., and multilateral financing agencies such as the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.

-snip-


Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/feedarticle/11751301

Thanks to Eugene, who found this. http://www.democraticunderground.com/110836488