There was a noticeable difference of opinion at the recent North American Gas Forum in Washington, D.C. on the speed and effectiveness that licenses to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. to countries without Free Trade Agreements (FTA).

An official from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said that the organization was responding as quickly and fairly as possible to each of these applications, but industry officials criticized the organization for moving too slowly.

“Our goal is to move as quickly as practical when making a decision on these applications, but we need to go through a process that benefits the public,” Christopher Smith, acting assistant secretary for fossil energy at the DOE said.

He noted that the DOE’s procedure was to evaluate each application in the order that they are received with the tacit understanding that this would prevent some companies from attempting to game the system. The agency also takes its time in order to allow public comments as well as review these comments.

According to Smith, if the DOE has a question on an application it will not move on to the next one until it has made a decision. While this process is pretty fair, it has resulted in longer reviews that have frustrated some applicants.

“The U.S. is missing out on opportunities to meet global demand in 2017-2025 [because of the delays caused by the DOE review process],” Octavio Simoes, president of Sempra LNG, said. Future demand is limited, but LNG production will continue to grow from other exporting countries, including Qatar, Australia, and Russia. If permits are slow to be instituted, it could push U.S. companies out of this potentially lucrative market.

“The world is our competition, there is now a single market that is wide open and the U.S. needs to beat other countries to punch to capitalize on this great opportunity,” Bill Davis, project executive for Golden Pass Products, said.

Even if the U.S. is not pushed out of this market going forward, there will be large gap between LNG export capacity and demand by 2025, according to Davis Thames, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Cheniere Energy.

LNG operators were also critical of the costs associated with the process, which Thames said cost companies about $100 million even after multiple studies have been commissioned and found that exports would not have a negative impact on domestic natural gas supplies or cause a sharp increase on their prices.

“LNG exports are not as controversial as they are being portrayed. These studies are at as near a consensus as you can get,” Bruce McKay, managing director of federal affairs at Dominion Resources, said.

Simoes was blunt in his assessment of the delays from the DOE on these applications. “There is no new info [on the impacts of LNG exports], no review, the DOE is just processing paper,” he said.

These discussions were held the day before the government shutdown took effect and that has obviously further slowed down the DOE’s timetable for making a decision on the current slate of export licenses.

While applications to export to FTA countries are generally approved pretty quickly, those for non-FTA countries have been lagging much further behind due to the aforementioned public process.

Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal was the first terminal to receive permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to export up to 803 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per year—2.2 Bcf per day— of domestically produced LNG volumes to countries both with and without Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with the U.S. The company stated that it could be ready to export these volumes as early as 2015.

It has since submitted two more applications to export 280 million cubic feet (MMcf) per day and 240 MMcf per day of LNG to both FTA and non-FTA countries. The two licenses for FTA exports were approved in July 2013. The company is seeking approval to export another 860 MMcf per day of LNG to both FTA and non-FTA countries as well.

Twenty other terminals have received DOE approval to export LNG to FTA countries. The majority of these applications are also seeking to export volumes to non-FTA countries. These projects include:

  • Freeport LNG, which received approval for two applications in February 2011 and February 2012 to export 1.4 Bcf per day to FTA countries. In May 2013, the company received approval to export this same capacity to non-FTA countries. The company has a second application to export volumes to non-FTA countries that is still pending. This project is expected to take three to four years to complete and could be brought online in early 2017;
  • Southern Union’s Trunkline LNG in Lake Charles, Louisiana, was approved in July 2011 to export 2 Bcf per day of LNG to FTA countries. The terminal was granted approval to export these same volumes to non-FTA countries in August 2013. The company said that construction could start in 2014 with the terminal being functional for exporting by 2018;
  • Carib Energy received approval in June 2011 to export 300,000 cubic feet per day of LNG from Florida and the Gulf Coast via ISO containers to FTA countries. The company is also seeking to export 100,000 cubic feet per day of LNG to non-FTA countries;
  • Dominon’s Cove Point LNG terminal on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland received authorization in October 2011 to export 1 Bcf per day. The company received approval to export 770 MMcf per day of LNG to non-FTA countries on September 11, 2013;
  • Jordan Cove Energy Project seeks to build a terminal in Coos County, Oregon, that will export 1.2 Bcf per day of LNG. It received DOE approval to export LNG to FTA countries in December 2011 and is seeking permission to export 800 MMcf per day to non-FTA countries;
  • Sempra’s Cameron LNG received permission from the DOE in January 2012 to export 1.7 Bcf per day from Hackberry, Louisiana, to FTA countries. The company stated that it intends to start construction on the project in late 2013 and begin operations in late 2016;
  • Gulf Coast LNG Export announced plans to build an export terminal in Brownsville, Texas, that will be capable of exporting up to 2.8 Bcf per day. The company is owned by Freeport LNG’s chief executive Michael Smith and is pending approval to export to both FTA and non-FTA countries;
  • Gulf LNG Liquefaction Company received permission from the DOE in June 2012 to export 1.5 Bcf per day of LNG from its terminal in Pascagoula, Mississippi;
  • Oregon LNG anticipates completing work on its terminal in Warrenton, Oregon, in 2017. It received DOE approval to export 1.25 Bcf per day to FTA countries;
  • SB Power Solutions received DOE permission in June 2012 to transport 700,000 cubic feet per day of LNG from the Atlantic Coast to the Gulf Coast and on to FTA countries. It is not seeking a license to export to non-FTA countries;
  • Southern LNG Company received DOE approval in June 2012 to export 500 MMcf per day of LNG from its terminal on Elba Island in Georgia, to FTA countries;
  • Excelerate Liquefaction Solutions I was granted a permit in August 2012 to export 1.38 Bcf per day of LNG from a terminal it is planning to build in Calhoun County, Texas, to FTA countries;
  • Golden Pass LNG terminal owned by ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum International received DOE approval in September 2012 to export 2.6 Bcf per day of LNG to FTA countries;
  • Cheniere Marketing LLC received approval to export 2.1 Bcf per day of LNG from its proposed Corpus Christi terminal to FTA countries in October 2012;
  • Main Pass Energy Hub LLC received approval in January 2013 to export up to 3.2 Bcf per day of LNG from its proposed deepwater LNG terminal off the coast of Louisiana to FTA countries. It has not applied to export volumes to non-FTA countries. Freeport-McMoRan Energy received approval in May 2013 to export 3.22 Bcf per day of LNG to FTA countries from the terminal and is seeking to export the same volumes to non-FTA countries;
  • CE FLNG received approval in to export 1.07 Bcf per day of LNG to FTA countries from its proposed Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana terminal in November 2012;
  • Waller LNG Services received approval in December 2012 to export up to 161 MMcf per day to FTA countries from its proposed terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. It is not seeking a license to non-FTA countries;
  • Pangea LNG Holdings received approval in November 2012 to export up to 1.09 Bcf per day of LNG to FTA countries from its proposed South Texas LNG project in the Port of Corpus Christi in Ingleside, Texas;
  • Magnoia LNG received approval in February 2013 to export 540 MMcf per day of LNG from its proposed terminal in Lake Charles, Louisiana to FTA countries. It is not seeking a license to export volumes to non-FTA countries; and
  • Gasfin Development USA received approval in March 2013 to export 2 Bcf per day of LNG from its proposed mid-scale terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana to FTA countries. It is not seeking a license to export volumes to non-FTA countries.

In addition there are five more applications from Venture Global LNG, Advanced Energy Solutions, Argent Marine Management, EOS LNG and Barca LNG outstanding for FTA export approval. The Advanced Energy Solutions and Argent Marine Management applications are the only ones not seeking a license to export volumes to non-FTA countries.