US to axe Biden-era 7-year deadline on exports from new LNG projects

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By Timothy Gardner and Curtis Williams

WASHINGTON/Houston (Reuters) -The U.S. is slated on Wednesday to rescind a policy issued by the administration of former President Joe Biden that requires liquefied natural gas, or LNG, projects to export within seven years of receiving regulatory approval.

The LNG industry had pushed the administration of President Donald Trump to rescind the policy statement issued in April 2023 on Department of Energy approvals for exports to big markets in Europe and Asia because several projects require more than seven years to complete.

“Henceforth, DOE will consider applications to extend an authorization holder’s export commencement deadline and grant such extensions for good cause shown on a case-by-case basis, an approach consistent with DOE’s practice prior to the issuance of the Policy Statement,” said a document slated to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.

Tala Goudarzi, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, said the Biden administration had made it unnecessarily difficult for projects to obtain and maintain an authorization to export LNG to non-free-trade-agreement countries.

Pipeline operator Energy Transfer in 2023 filed for a new export license for its proposed 16.45 million metric tons per annum Lake Charles LNG facility in Louisiana, after the DOE denied its request for a three-year extension to its old one, saying it did not meet the criteria.

Energy Transfer was not immediately available for comment.

Fred Hutchison, president and CEO of LNG Allies, a trade group, called the previous deadline policy inflexible and said the new policy marked a return to regular order.

“We are grateful that a commonsense approach has returned to the U.S. LNG export process,” Hutchison said.

(Reporting by Timothy GardnerEditing by Marguerita Choy and Leslie Adler)