WSJ: How Gas From Texas Becomes Cooking Fuel in France

quote:

---

How Gas From Texas Becomes Cooking Fuel in France

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe is importing U.S. natural gas like never before to heat homes, generate electricity and power factories

Wall Street Journal

Cities across Europe are keeping the lights on and heating homes with natural gas fracked from wells in Texas and Louisiana, as U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas to the continent reach record levels.

After its tanks rolled into Ukraine, Russia all but cut its flows of pipeline gas to Europe, by far its largest customer. The curtailment forced Europe to tap into supplies of American LNG like never before, its shores attracting tankers filled with the liquid gas by the hundreds. Between 2021 and 2022, exports of U.S. LNG to Europe more than doubled, according to commodities-data firm Kpler.

The imports, combined with balmy weather and sky-high prices that depressed demand, helped defuse the threat of a disastrous winter that could have hammered Europe’s economies and left its people freezing in the dark. Many European buyers remain concerned about committing to large volumes of fossil fuels because the European Union has set ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions to reduce the effects of climate change.

For now, Europe has been forced to increase imports of U.S. LNG, deepening cross-Atlantic trading ties and elevating America’s role as an energy superpower.

But before an American molecule of gas can be burned by a power plant in Italy, used to cook in Spain or produce fertilizer in Germany, it has to be pumped out of the ground, treated, piped, chilled, loaded onto a ship and converted into gas again. The journey spans the gas fields of Appalachia and the Gulf Coast, and involves thousands of miles of pipelines; giant, multibillion-dollar fridges; and a global fleet of special vessels.

Here’s what the voyage looks like.

Producing the gas

Today, U.S. producers drill for gas mainly in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico; the Marcellus Shale, which underlies much of Appalachia; and the Haynesville basin, which straddles East Texas and West Louisiana. In January, these regions accounted for about 70% of U.S. shale gas production, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Executives and analysts expect these basins, and particularly the Haynesville, to supply much of the gas needed by a raft of planned export terminals on the Gulf Coast in the second half of this decade. “You need both Appalachia and Haynesville to service the LNG side,” said Bill Way, chief executive of gas producer Southwestern Energy Co.

To get to the gas, a crew operating a drilling rig plunks pipes attached to a rock-destroying bit into the ground. Workers typically dig around 2 miles vertically, before turning the drill bit horizontally to bore around 2 miles through shale. A fracking crew then takes over, manning powerful pumps to send water, sand and chemicals down the hole to break shale rock open and extract gas molecules.




Treating the gas

After hydrocarbons travel back to the surface, oil and gas are separated in a special vessel if needed. Then, the gas is ferried to a processing plant in small-diameter pipelines. There, water is removed, as well as impurities such as sulfur, hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide, which reduce the gas’s heating power or corrode pipelines. Propane and butane—byproducts of gas processing—are also captured to be sold separately.

Liquefying the gas

The U.S. currently hosts seven multibillion-dollar liquefaction plants with enough capacity to export more than 13 billion cubic feet of gas a day—more than a 10th of U.S. production. By 2030, new plants coming online are expected to push that capacity to around 23 billion cubic feet, according to S&P Global, requiring many more new gas wells.

Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass facility in Louisiana is the world’s second-largest LNG facility. Once the gas arrives via four pipelines, it is fed to six liquefaction units, or “trains,” each roughly the size of a small airport terminal.

First, the fuel is further treated to remove any contaminants that would freeze at ultralow temperatures. Then, it goes through turbine engines, compressors and more than 200 cooling fans. Refrigerants—much like in a household fridge—cool the gas in three phases until its temperature drops to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit and it turns liquid. By then, the gas’s volume has been reduced by about 600 times. The LNG is then stored in tanks big enough to fit a cargo plane.

Pipelines take the LNG for loading onto specially designed ships, each about as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall. Over the course of about 20 hours, the LNG is fed into the ships’ tanks via special pipes. In December, vessels shipped 41 cargoes out of Sabine Pass, according to the Energy Department.

One shipload can represent enough energy to heat more than 43,000 U.S. homes for a year, according to the Energy Department.

---