Looking past the glut
Charif Souki and Martin Houston think now is the time to start building more US liquefaction capacity
Sometime early next decade the glut in liquefied natural gas will be gone and customers will be scrounging for fresh supply. Charif Souki and Martin Houston, two men with a long history in the business, will be ready. Cargoes of LNG will arrive in Europe from their plant in Louisiana, landing for a price of just $7 per 1,000 cubic feet (cf). Today’s supply surfeit doesn’t matter. The market will need their gas, and they will produce it more cheaply than anyone else on the planet. That’s the plan anyway. In today’s market it looks bold, to say the least. The world isn’t short of LNG or proposals to build more liquefaction capacity (see p16-35). The crash in seaborne-gas prices has brought a r
Also in this section
9 April 2026
The April 2026 issue of Petroleum Economist is out now!
9 April 2026
Offshore operators are working through an FID backlog as the rig market consolidates, helped by improving project economics and a renewed security drive
2 April 2026
Alongside a rapid continued build-out of renewables, China’s latest five-year plan stresses the value of domestic hydrocarbon production for energy security and calls for increased Russian gas imports
2 April 2026
The government is taking important steps to revive domestic production, lift investment and benefit from the geopolitical crisis even if more needs to be done in the longer term
