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The US will no longer impose a 7-year export deadline set by Biden on new LNG projects

Wednesday, the U.S. will revoke a policy that was issued by former President Joe Biden's administration, which required that liquefied gas projects, or LNG, export within seven year of regulatory approval.

The LNG industry had pressured the Trump administration to withdraw the April 2023 policy statement on Department of Energy export approvals to major markets in Europe, Asia and Africa because many projects would take more than seven year to complete.

The Federal Register will publish a document on Wednesday that states, "From now on, DOE will review applications to extend the export start deadline of an authorized holder and grant extensions for good reason shown, on a case by case basis. This is consistent with DOE’s prior practice before the Policy Statement was issued."

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.

Energy Transfer, a pipeline operator, filed a new license in 2023 for its proposed 16,45 million metric ton per year Lake Charles LNG facility, in Louisiana. The DOE had previously denied the request for an extension of three years for the old one.

Energy Transfer is not available to comment at this time.

Fred Hutchison is the president and CEO at LNG Allies. He called the previous policy of deadlines inflexible. The new policy marks a return to normal order.

Hutchison stated, "We're grateful that common sense has been restored to the U.S. LNG Export Process." (Reporting and Editing by Margueritachoy and Leslie Adler.)

(source: Reuters)