Page 4 - LatAmOil Week 44 2021
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COMMENTAR
LatAmOil COMMENTARY Y LatAmOil
Jacksonville LNG facility (Image: Eagle Partners)
US senators eye Latin American
and Caribbean LNG markets
Five members of the upper house are trying to expedite the permit process for small-scale LNG exports
EARLIER this week, five US Senators came out – that is, in volumes of no more than 51.1bn
in support of draft legislation that would give cubic feet (1.447bn cubic metres) per year. It
WHAT: US natural gas producers incentives for target- calls for the US Department of Energy (DOE) to
Rubio, Cassidy and three ing markets in Latin America and the Caribbean expedite the approval of such requests “without
other Republicans have region. modification or delay” on the grounds that such
submitted the Small- In theory, the proposal, known as the Small- initiatives are “consistent with the public inter-
Scale LNG Access Act for Scale LNG Access Act, could benefit countries in est”, according to statements released by Cassidy
consideration. these regions, as well as US exporters, by open- and Rubio.
ing up new avenues for the delivery of clean- “The current permitting process for LNG
WHY: er-burning fuel. export facilities is expensive, and small-scale
The legislation has the In practice, though, it is likely to fail, largely projects often are not cost-effective under cur-
potential to facilitate US
LNG deliveries to Latin for political reasons. rent conditions,” the statements said. “Reducing
American and Caribbean the time and investment required for small-scale
markets. The measure exports will benefit US production, manufac-
The Small-Scale LNG Access Act was re-intro- turing and construction jobs, while also reduc-
WHAT NEXT: duced in the US Senate on November 3 by five ing trade deficits with the importing country.
The bill is unlikely to Republican Senators – Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Increasing LNG exports, even on a small scale,
pass, though a nearly James Inhofe (Oklahoma), John Kennedy (Lou- will positively impact the economies of the
identical rule adopted by isiana), Marco Rubio (Florida) and Rick Scott United States, as well as the economies of those
the Department of Energy (Florida). receiving US natural gas.”
remains in place. The bill is designed to expedite the approval Both Cassidy and Rubio pointed out that
of requests for permission to export US-pro- the bill was designed to codify an existing rule
duced natural gas in relatively small amounts adopted by the DOE in July 2018.
P4 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 44 04•November•2021