Unpacking the Department of Energy’s Report on US Liquefied Natural Gas Exports

Long one of the world’s largest natural gas producers, the United States has now leaned into exporting the fuel overseas in the form of liquefied natural gas, or LNG. US LNG exports rose from less than 0.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2015 to nearly 12 Bcf/d in 2023. The United States has now surpassed Australia and Qatar as the world’s largest LNG exporter.Following a year-long pause in approvals of new LNG export permits, in December 2024 the Department of Energy (DOE) published “Energy, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of U.S. LNG Exports” (DOE 2024), a report assessing the consequences of continued increases in US LNG exports out to 2050. On January 21, 2025, the newly inaugurated Trump administration lifted the permitting pause and extended the window for submitting public comment on the report through March 20. This still-live report estimates how an expansion of US LNG exports would affect domestic energy prices and global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, along with many other economic and societal outcomes. Other views on the matter include an analysis by S&P Global (Yergin et al. 2024).The complex modeling needed to make predictions necessarily requires many assumptions, some of which are subject to critique and debate. Rather than taking on the entire DOE report, we focus on four aspects of the modeling effort: (i) methane emissions that leak from the gas supply chain, (ii) impacts on US natural gas prices, (iii) projections of the highly uncertain future global demand for US LNG, and (iv) how energy consumers may substitute between LNG imports and other energy sources. Where appropriate, we also compare our findings with the S&P Global report.