US LNG Still Attracts Sonatrach, Total

摘要

US LNG imports may be straggling to top 1 billion cubic feet per day (7.7 million tons per year) amid rising domestic gas production and persistently noncompetitive netbacks (p6), but not everyone has given up on the market as a destination for LNG (WGI Apr.9,p8). At least two key players with strong global supply positions, Algerian state Sonatrach and private French major Total, see a continuing important position for North America in arbitrage trading in the years to come — and advantages in having dedicated terminal infrastructure to support it. "By 2012, around one-third of Sonatrach's LNG capacity will be dedicated to the Atlantic Basin market," Othmane Irain, head of LNG Export Americas at Sonatrach, told CWC's 2008 LNG conference in San Antonio, Texas, last week.