Record March Production Kicks Off Projected Boom In US LNG Exports

With an eighth export terminal coming online, two more starting up, and the Trump administration eager to pump up the volume, demand for U.S. gas has swelled.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright displays the order he just signed approving Delfin LNG LLC’s permit through June 2029 to begin exporting LNG from its offshore Louisiana terminal, in Houston on March 11, 2025. John Haughey/The Epoch Times

Surging global demand for natural gas and the buildout of a new Louisiana export terminal highlight a record-setting March for United States gas producers, according to London Stock Exchange Group data.

In March, U.S. producers exported nearly 9.25 percent more liquefied natural gas (LNG) than they did in December 2024, surpassing the previous export record set less than three months ago.

Europeans again paced the market, purchasing more than 70 percent of March’s exports, despite the percentage of LNG they purchased actually declining from more than 80 percent in February.

While European demand remained steady, sales to Asian and Latin American buyers have steadily increased, data compiled by the United States Energy Information Administration indicates.

As much as a third of U.S. LNG exports now go to Asian buyers, primarily in Japan, South Korea, and India, an increasing overall percentage of exports despite China dramatically scaling back its LNG imports from American producers.

LNG exports from the United States have increased every year since starting from scratch in 2016 to becoming the world’s largest exporter by 2023, the Energy Information Administration reports.

A significant contributor to March’s record production was the addition of Phase 1 of Venture Global’s Plaquemines LNG plant 20 miles south of New Orleans, which went online in January.

East Daley Analytics reported in mid-March that the 630-acre plant on the Mississippi River was operating at 140 percent capacity.

It produced more than 9 percent of exported LNG in March, East Daley’s Data Center Demand Monitor documents.

Plaquemines is the eighth LNG export terminal to go online in the United States. All are in Texas and Louisiana on the Gulf of America.

More liquefaction plants and export terminals are being proposed and built, with a new port operation set for Alaska at the end of an 800-mile pipeline, and others being considered in several West Coast and mid-Atlantic ports, including Philadelphia.

Proposals to build an export terminal in the Philadelphia area along the Delaware River have been circulating since at least 2017, with sites in Chester and Marcus Hook in Pennsylvania, and in Gibbstown, New Jersey, among prospective projects.

“It’s been hope and a dream for a long time,” Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association President and Executive Director Dan Weaver told The Epoch Times in April. “We’re working on it.”

President Donald Trump’s lifting of the Biden administration’s LNG export permit pause as part of a series of executive orders issued since assuming office on Jan. 20 has cleared the way for six Gulf of America LNG export projects to proceed.

In addition to Plaquemines, Corpus Christi LNG’s Stage 3 plant began producing its first LNG in February, and Golden Pass LNG is expected to come online before summer.

Surge No Surprise

Trump’s energy policies seek to “unleash” fossil fuel development, especially natural gas, to lower domestic electricity costs and pay down the nation’s near-$37 trillion debt.

During CERAWeek by S&P Global in Houston in March, the largest annual gathering of global oil and gas executives in the United States, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright ceremoniously signed an order approving a LNG export permit extension for Delfin LNG LLC, giving it until June 2029 to begin operations.

The permit had idled under the Biden administration with timelines set to expire, forcing Delfin to resubmit its request, a delay that could add years to the approval process.

The administration supports “anything to make it easier to produce new oil and gas” to lower costs, Wright said.

“More energy means better lives,” he said.

The LNG export boom was anticipated.

The Energy Information Administration’s March 2025 Short-Term Energy Outlook projected a 20 percent increase in U.S. domestic gas production in 2025 and a 15 percent increase in 2026.

“We expect U.S. LNG exports to continue growing, driven by the start-up of three new facilities” that will expand the nation’s export capacity by 50 percent when fully operational this year, the administration said in an April 3 analysis of the outlook.