U.S. ready to be a net exporter next year

The United States is on track to become a net exporter of natural gas next year, as growing production, expanding pipelines, and new liquefied natural gas facilities target foreign markets, according to the Energy Department.

The U.S. started exporting LNG last year, courtesy of Houstonbased Cheniere Energy, and the country is increasingly piping more natural gas to Mexico while, simultaneously, importing less gas via pipeline from Canada. The U.S. was still an overall net importer last year.

The nation is projected to become a net exporter of total energy products shortly after 2020, the Energy Department said, which was a virtually unheard of proposition just a decade ago.

Cheniere’s first LNG export facility at Louisiana’s Sabine Pass near the Texas border came online a year ago. Houston-based Freeport LNG Development’s export terminal is slated to start shipping LNG in 2018. Three other LNG export projects will be completed or under construction by 2021, including Cheniere’s other facility near Corpus Christi.

The new U.S. projects and a glut of LNG exports from Australia is projected to keep the world oversupplied with LNG beyond 2020, according to a new Moody’s Investors Service report. While China, India and other emerging markets will require more LNG in the future, global demand isn’t expected to catch up with production until after 2020, according to Moody’s.

The U.S., however, will keep exporting more natural gas by pipeline to Mexico to feed power plants for electricity generation. U.S. natural gas exports to Mexico have doubled since 2009 and will continue growing through 2020, according to the Energy Department. Several pipeline projects are currently under construction.