Tariffs to affect progress of U.S. LNG industry: experts

Tariffs imposed by the U.S. government on imported goods from China and other countries will affect the development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in the United States, experts said.

Tariffs will raise the costs of products as the United States imports steel and other raw materials to build new LNG plants, said Ira Joseph on Tuesday, head of gas and power analytics at S&P Global Platts, a global leading supplier of energy market information.

The United States now mainly ships LNG to Europe rather than Asia, as LNG prices in Asia came down much and price difference between Asian and U.S. markets does not allow long-distance shipping, Joseph told Xinhua on the sidelines of an industrial meeting hosted by Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

The construction of multiple export-oriented LNG projects in the United States has been delayed for a few months to as much as a year, due to technical issues or efforts to downsize capacity amid oversupply, according to Leslie Palti-Guzman, co-founder and president of New York-based LNG advisory firm GasVista.

In 2018, the United States imposed 25-percent and 10-percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum products, respectively, from its major trading partners. So far, progresses have been made to exempt from or to lift the tariffs with some countries.
Source: Xinhua