The U.S. Is Now The World’s Top Exporter Of Liquefied Natural Gas

The United States sold more liquefied natural gas on the global market than any other country in 2023, surpassing yet another milestone in the nation’s transformation into a fossil fuel superpower.

Drillers across the U.S. broke records for production last year. By December, wells across the lower 48 states were generating nearly 106 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

On average each day, almost 12 billion cubic feet were superchilled to nearly 300 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, shrinking the fuel to one-600th of its gaseous size, and shipped overseas to buyers in Europe and Asia, data published Monday by the federal Energy Information Administration shows.

Between 2020 and 2023, LNG sales from Australia and Qatar ― the world’s two other largest exporters ― ranged from about 10.1 billion cubic feet per day to 10.5 billion. In third place was Russia, which exported on average 4.2 billion cubic feet per day in 2023, followed by Malaysia, which averaged 3.5 billion.

U.S. exports saw massive growth last year, surging 12% compared to 2022.

The spike came after the Freeport LNG terminal in Texas ― which closed in June 2022 after a fire ― returned to full operations early last year and ramped up to full production by April.

The facility came back online right as European democracies were scrambling for alternatives to fuel that Russia had supplied via pipeline. Europe, including Turkey, accounted for 66% of all U.S. LNG exports, followed by Asia at 26% and Latin America and the Middle East with a combined 8%.

The Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom imported a combined 35% of all U.S. LNG exports last year as the continent expanded its infrastructure for receiving and storing more LNG.

The Dutch bolstered the size