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The US does have something to lose. The US is now a large natural gas exporter, and that demand pulls away from our domestic market, which forces our prices hig
by adventured 5y ago
The US does have something to lose. The US is now a large natural gas exporter, and that demand pulls away from our domestic market, which forces our prices higher. When European natural gas prices are 4x-5x that of the US, the foreign demand for cheaper US imports can become a frenzy. While US prices may seem cheap by comparison to what Europe is seeing, when you triple those prices versus a year ago, US consumers feel that hit significantly (with many population centers in the US having quite cold Winter weather, expectations right now are for a quite expensive Winter season in the US for natural gas prices). And the US has also become a lot more dependent on natural gas as an energy source over the last 15-20 years, so it's increasingly sensitive to such large price spikes; far more so than back in the commodity bubble years of 2005-2008 which saw US natural gas prices climb to about 3x where they're at now (before the supply boom in the US crushed prices).
If natural gas prices in the US keep soaring, you can expect the Biden Administration to look into turning off exports via whatever justification they can come up with to make it happen.