{"id":295025,"date":"2026-05-15T20:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/295025\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T20:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T20:41:08","slug":"as-war-tightens-lng-supply-u-s-natural-gas-exports-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/295025\/","title":{"rendered":"As war tightens LNG supply, U.S. natural gas exports surge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The day before the U.S. bombed Iran, President Donald Trump <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/program\/white-house-event\/president-trump-in-texas-on-us-energy-production\/674216\">stood at the Port of Corpus Christi<\/a>, celebrating America\u2019s rise as an energy superpower. <\/p>\n<p>Within days, the war in the Middle East spiked energy prices, and countries around the world were left to scramble to find replacements for roughly 20% of global oil and LNG supplies stranded in the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n<p>Soon, activity in the energy-heavy Port of Corpus Christi, Texas, <a title=\"\" class=\"interallink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2026\/05\/01\/corpus-christi-energy-exports-surge-amid-war-in-middle-east\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">would reach new heights<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While some of that growth was a direct response to the war, LNG exports <a title=\"\" class=\"interallink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2025\/03\/18\/liquefied-natural-gas-is-booming-u-s-export\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">had already been reaching all-time highs<\/a> in Corpus Christi and nationwide, spurred by long-term investments and growing global demand. <\/p>\n<p>U.S. natural gas exports are expected to grow <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/todayinenergy\/detail.php?id=67484\">another 30% in the next year and a half<\/a>, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That expansion is driven mostly by new and expanding LNG export projects along the Gulf Coast. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cLNG shipments this year are actually <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/portofcc.com\/port-of-corpus-christi-customers-move-record-tonnage-in-first-quarter-of-2026\/\">up about 40% over the same period last year<\/a>,\u201d said Port of Corpus Christi CEO Kent Britton. <\/p>\n<p>Business at the port is booming as more natural gas is piped down from West Texas and New Mexico. \u201cThere is a lot more gas to be discovered easily in the Permian [Basin] than oil,\u201d Britton said. \u201cLNG is the growth story of the next decade.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The U.S. is now exporting roughly 20 billion cubic feet per day of LNG, according to Ross Wyeno, an analyst with S&amp;P Global Energy. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cUp from basically zero a little over 10 years ago. So it&#8217;s been a massive increase. The U.S. <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/rrapier\/2026\/05\/12\/why-the-us-now-dominates-global-lng-markets\/\">is now the largest supplier of LNG in the world<\/a>, with plans to grow significantly more over the next 10 years,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>A lot of that LNG is sold to utilities in Asia, Wyeno said. And that business boosts local coastal economies. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had a huge amount of investment in the Gulf Coast economy in terms of just the equipment and manpower and construction,\u201d said Jesse Thompson, an economist with the Dallas Fed. \u201cAnd then the plants themselves, that\u2019s a much smaller footprint in terms of total labor, but they are very high-wage jobs.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Now the industry is watching whether the conflict triggers another wave of LNG investment.  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese buyers may be interested in finding a more secure source of supply that could encourage them to sign up for a contract, potentially in the U.S., but the U.S. is also facing concentration risk,\u201d Wyeno said.  <\/p>\n<p>Having so much LNG come out of the Middle East has proven to be risky; the U.S. has its own risk, like hurricanes and politics. LNG buyers may choose other sellers, like Canada or Algeria. Or they might move away from natural gas altogether. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHigh LNG prices, the risk of this large portion of global supply getting cut off, and just price volatility in general are not good for demand creation,\u201d Wyeno said. <\/p>\n<p>And because LNG supply is increasing quickly, demand growth is essential, especially in Asia \u2014 the very markets being hit hard right now. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you look at the emerging markets \u2014 India, Pakistan, Bangladesh \u2014 they&#8217;re seeing severe curtailments of gas supply, and they&#8217;re switching demand toward coal, and in some cases they\u2019re restricting gas deliveries to some downstream users,\u201d he said.  <\/p>\n<p>If the countries getting hit hard by today\u2019s energy crisis decide to use less natural gas than they planned, coastal communities like Corpus Christi could end up with LNG capacity with nowhere to send it.<\/p>\n<p>Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The day before the U.S. bombed Iran, President Donald Trump stood at the Port of Corpus Christi, celebrating&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156,19867,60987,11310,27],"class_list":["post-295025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-lng","tag-lng-exports","tag-natural-gas","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}