A tanker filled with liquefied natural gas (LNG) with “Russian DNA” arrived in Boston in early March. This was already the second shipment of so-called “Russian gas” to the United States: earlier this year the “Gaselys” tanker owned by the French energy company Engie delivered Yamal gas molecules from the Isle of Grain LNG terminal in the UK.

The news was something of a surprise for the media, which has almost exclusively portrayed the US as an exporter – not importer – of LNG.

Why does the U.S. — the world’s largest gas producer and net gas exporter — need to import LNG?

Following the “shale revolution” and the surge in natural gas output, imports of LNG to U.S. terminals were reduced to a bare minimum. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. LNG imports barely reached 2.21 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2017, with most cargos arriving from Trinidad in the Caribbean Basin.

Read the full commentary here.

Photo: "Arctic Discoverer LNG tanker 3068" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Yukon White Light