According to the Department of Energy (DoE) press release, the pause on liquid natural gas (LNG) exports by the Biden administration was only for new export authorization requests to non-free trade countries; Nothing that would really affect the U.S.
The historically large year-over-year decline in 2024 makes any seasonal decomposition unnecessary.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but export capacity utilization is mainly for pipelines, not for shipped LNG. Maybe it could be calculated based on the number of export terminals and licenses, but I've never seen a metric for it.
Even on raw exports though: compare the heating season of 22/23 to 23/24 and then the subsequent two months (because data only goes through May of this year). So the comparison is Nov 22- Mar 23 (1.7M MMcf exports) versus Nov 23-Mar 24 (1.9M MMcf exports).
The two months after each heating season shows 0.74M MMcf exports in '23 and 0.67M MMcf in '24. So down 55% in '23 and down 65% in '24. (Comparable figure 2 years back is 60% decrease)
It's funky because this compares five months total exports (Nov - Mar) to two months (Apr + May). But still.
The distinct seasonality in natural gas markets, including LNG exports, makes looking at the raw numbers a little confusing. But I don't see anything unusual going on here.
Worth a deeper analysis. Just eyeballing it, you can see that peak exports are often in May -- not something you would expect from a heating season trend, but will look into it further.
Seems like seasonality to me. You'd expect a big drop each spring. The raw size of the decrease will get larger as total capacity increases.
What's export capacity utilization over time?
The historically large year-over-year decline in 2024 makes any seasonal decomposition unnecessary.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but export capacity utilization is mainly for pipelines, not for shipped LNG. Maybe it could be calculated based on the number of export terminals and licenses, but I've never seen a metric for it.
EIA discusses export capacity, though I believe the calc the percentage based on volumes and capacity (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61683).
Even on raw exports though: compare the heating season of 22/23 to 23/24 and then the subsequent two months (because data only goes through May of this year). So the comparison is Nov 22- Mar 23 (1.7M MMcf exports) versus Nov 23-Mar 24 (1.9M MMcf exports).
The two months after each heating season shows 0.74M MMcf exports in '23 and 0.67M MMcf in '24. So down 55% in '23 and down 65% in '24. (Comparable figure 2 years back is 60% decrease)
It's funky because this compares five months total exports (Nov - Mar) to two months (Apr + May). But still.
The distinct seasonality in natural gas markets, including LNG exports, makes looking at the raw numbers a little confusing. But I don't see anything unusual going on here.
Worth a deeper analysis. Just eyeballing it, you can see that peak exports are often in May -- not something you would expect from a heating season trend, but will look into it further.