US records highest exports of Natural Gas for the first time after 6 decades

Washington: Last year US President Barak Obama had taken a decision, to permit the US companies to export fuel once again. After this, merely within a year US oil and natural gas exports seem to have grown rapidly. According to the November figures, US has achieved success in exporting more than 7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. It has been predicted that US may be amongst the three major fuel exporting countries in the next three years.

After a ban of four decades, US had restarted fuel exports in December 2015. Accordingly, in a year’s time the US companies took by storm , European nations, China and Japan, indicating higher expansions in the export sector in the coming years. As per information given by the US sources, US is currently exporting natural gas to almost 10 countries.

The countries included are Latin America, Gulf, Europe and Asian countries. It has been said that amongst the Asian countries, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, China and India are countries to whom US has started exporting fuel. An American company ‘Cheniere Energy’ has signed a long-term agreement with companies in Europe for exports of ‘LNG’ fuel. These include companies from Portugal, Spain and Britain.

To break the Russian monopoly of supplying fuel to the European nations, the first ship from US carrying ‘LNG’ had reached Europe in April this year. This ship, as believed by the experts, was a part of the comprehensive fuel agreement between US and Europe, indicating , henceforth, US will regularly export fuel to European nations. After this in July, the US Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exports were started to China and Gulf countries.

US fuel export to Europe and other countries started by US is an important phase of a policy aimed to break the Russian dominance. Russian stronghold has been based on her fuel strength. However with the start of Ukraine crisis, European nations took measures to break the Russian dominance, assisted to a great extent by US.

With ‘Shale Oil’ revolutionizing the fuel sector in US some time back, America has from an importer of fuel has become an exporter. As per reports of the ‘Deutsche Bank’ in Europe, US will emerge as the largest exporter of fuel to Europe in the next ten years.

Out of the total US gas production, 6% of fuel gas is exported to Mexico and 2.5% to Canada. It is also indicated that in the coming years, US would be capable of exporting 20% of fuel gas after meeting its domestic demand. Today, countries like Norway, Qatar, Australia and Russia hold dominance in fuel gas sector. As predicted by the US Energy Department , US will be amongst the top three exporter countries by the year 2020.

After achieving self-sufficiency in the fuel sector and entering the export field, US has changed equations in the international market whose impact seems visible on the international geopolitical relations.