Everyone gets jealous sometimes and Charif Souki , chairman and chief executive officer for Cheniere Energy , wasn’t above telling a room full of Young Professionals in Energy members that he was jealous at the organization’s Senior Leadership Reception on December 2 in Houston.
“Young professionals in energy, first thing I want to tell is I am jealous obviously because you are young but also because this is probably one of the most exciting times in our business I have ever seen,” he said.
He went on to say that predicting the future is just not possible. “You will have enough opponents and experts, and economist and analyst who will tell you what is going to happen five years from now but I guarantee you one thing: they will be wrong,” Souki said.
No one predicted five years ago the situation the country is in today. There was a point that the U.S. was worried they would run out of energy and would have to import everything and they were wrong, he said.
“In the last five years a miracle happened, we found an abundance of energy in this country and the tables have completely reversed , “ he said. “To put it in prospective what has happened to the cost of energy in this county, when you put it together and you compute it is the equivalent of a $300 billion per year tax cut. We spent less money on gas, less money than any other country in the world on our gasoline. We heat our homes significantly cheaper than anywhere else. We turn our lights out for less.”
There are incredible energy opportunities in the U.S. right now that Souki pointed out. He said that in 2012 42,000 wells were drilled at a cost of $200 billion and $18 billion was spent on infrastructure that will increase to more than $216 billion over 12 years.
He also pointed out that the “U.S. is on pace to be a net gas exporter by mid-decade.” The EIAS forecast released in September stated that the country has cut imports by 61% since 2005.
While the U.S. is in a positive place right now there are certain things that must be done to ensure that peak potential is reached. His presentation said that $200 billion in capital investment was needed in midstream and downstream by 2025 and “America must reconfigure and frequently reverse its pipelines, rails and marine terminals to meet new energy delivery needs.”
The right combination of things will allow the U.S. to become not only a net energy exporter but also bring unemployment rates down not just in energy producing states but at a national level. Souki sees the potential and “Cheniere Energy is contributing necessary to meet the needs of our energy moment.”
The company is currently spending $5 billion to build a liquefaction project at Sabine Pass. The project is employing 2,000 construction workers currently and will be expanding that to 4,000 workers in 2014.
“We are on our way to investing $25 billion in future LNG projects,” he said.
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