The stocks of LNG exporters in the United States have seen a jump following Donald Trump’s election victory, with many seeing the industry as one of the main beneficiaries of an upcoming new trade deal between Washington and Brussels.
Trump has spoken about the trade deficit that the U.S. has been running with the European Union for years and wants to change that by imposing tariffs on European imports. The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, responded to that threat by suggesting the EU could boost the amount of U.S. LNG it buys.
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“We look forward to working with the incoming Trump administration to cement America’s role as the world’s leading supplier of clean liquefied natural gas,” Venture Global’s chief executive Michael Sabel told the Financial Times.
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“In recent years, Europe has moved swiftly to build out the necessary infrastructure needed to support a surge of LNG into the region and with the necessary policy support and regulatory certainty the United States is well positioned to meet that long-term demand,” Sabel added.
Other industry executives also spoke positively about the expected trade talks between Washington and Brussels. “We can supply — that’s the good thing about natural gas reserves in America,” Continental Resources’ Harold Hamm told the FT. “I would expect that the LNG permit pause is going to go within the first couple of days of the Trump administration,” American Petroleum Institute president Mike Sommers said.
Last week, a couple of days after the U.S. elections, Commission President von der Leyen told media she had touched on the subject of more U.S. LNG imports during a phone call with te president-elect.
“We still get a whole lot of LNG via Russia, from Russia. And why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper, and brings down our energy prices,” Von der Leyen said, as quoted by Bloomberg, at the time.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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