"LNG STUCK ON AMBER
America’s slow move toward exporting its natural gas bounty could be delayed still further.
The Obama administration said it would perform a more rigorous upfront review of proposals to export liquefied natural gas. The Wall Street Journal’s Alicia Mundy andAlison Sider explain that this would require export-terminal proposals to first undergo a more expensive regulatory review by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, involving an environmental impact assessment, before the Department of Energy reviews the permit application.
But a few of the 25 proposed projects could benefit. It could push back the approval process for some companies’ permit requests, while more-advanced proposed projects are expected to be able to jump forward in the queue.
That will be frustrating for those who hold that exporting is a no-brainer. Also for companies that are already investing in the hope of either sending or receiving U.S. LNG.
Frustrating too, for those who believe opening America’s LNG taps would drive down energy costs world-wide (not that this is necessarily a done deal, as the Journal has explained more than once.)
In Canada, similar delays are besetting the LNG-export industry. The head of Malaysian national oil and gas company Petronas has warned that the window of opportunity is small for those that want to take a competitive lead.
The Journal’s Chester Dawson reports that Petronas’ CEO cited the Australian experience, where the LNG “boom fizzled out before it even took off.”
Cost pressures could abate Down Under this year, Platts reports, leading to a possible second-wave of LNG project development.
MEXICAN WAYS
There’s trouble brewing down Mexico way.
The arrest of Amado Yáñez Osuna, head of oil services firm Oceanografia, has sent shock waves across the country, the Journal’s Laurence Iliff and Amy Guthrie report.
Mr. Yáñez has been charged with violating banking laws, with his company being accused of defrauding the local unit of U.S. giant Citigroup.
This has shone a spotlight on long-simmering allegations that the country’s former ruling National Action Party used state-owned oil from Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, to favor Oceanografía and other contractors during the party’s 12 years in power.
This could all have implications for the Mexican government’s plans for the energy sector, which include ending Pemex’s 75-year monopoly on domestic oil and gas and allowing a new round of exploration to see how far south the Texan shale-oil seams run".
Source: The WSJ
