President Donald Trump’s strong interest in exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) has carried over from his first term. It’s a critical part of what the Trump administration says makes up the heart of the U.S. economy, and it provides an edge in the geopolitical battle for dominating energy markets.
There were no surprise announcements from the Trump administration last week — electric vehicle tax credits won’t be supported, offshore oil and gas drilling will increase, renewable energy won’t be supported, and the U.S. will go back to staying away from the UN’s climate change initiative. The focus will be on global energy exports.
“We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth,” Trump said during his inauguration speech. “And we are going to use it…and export American energy all over the world.”
Trump will have to watch out for overpromising on LNG. He’ll have to wait to see if market demand will justify moving forward on building any of the nearly two dozen new export terminals in the U.S. President Biden had put that on hold a year ago, but that decision was overturned by a federal judge in July.
Demand continues to rise in Europe as Russia’s supply of gas through Ukraine has been cut off due to the war. Exxon has four LNG projects under development and expects to start commissioning the production units in the US and Qatar first, by the end of this year, according to a senior Exxon Mobil Corp. executive. Other US export projects will also start picking up production, but most of the new supply won’t arrive until 2027.
In 2023, the U.S. used 1.27 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas for transportation, which is about 4% of the total natural gas consumed in America. Most of the natural gas used for transportation that year came from renewable natural gas, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration. Another significant indicator from that year: LNG exports accounted for 57% of the U.S.’s total natural gas exports.
U.S. exports of LNG have grown quite a bit over the past eight years, in part because of the rise of fracking and also because of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which hurt Russia’s pipeline exports of natural gas to Europe.
LNG has gone mainstream for most commercial trucks, with some of it being bio-LNG. The list of trucks using LNG includes Volvo FH, FH Aero, FM, and FMX; Peterbilt Model 386 and 579, Freightliner M2 112, Raley’s, and Kenworth T800.
Read more on Trump’s executive orders on energy policies from ACT News.
How Europe is doing: The alternative fuel market in November 2024 shows a continued dominance of battery electric vehicles (BEVs), with cars at 15.0% and vans at 5.2% market share, according to European Alternative Fuels Observatory. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) maintain a moderate share of 8% in the car segment, while fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) remain absent in both categories. Propane-powered vehicles account for 2.9% of cars and 1.0% of vans, whereas compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles register no market share, the agency said.
ACT Expo keynoters: Jennifer Rumsey, Chair & CEO, Cummins Inc., Lars Stenqvist, CTO, Volvo Group, and Jim Walenczak, Vice President, PACCAR Inc, General Manager, Kenworth Truck Company, are the first keynote speakers announced for Advanced Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo 2025. Held April 28 to May 1, 2025, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Southern California, these three speakers will each be on stage on that Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This year’s ACT Expo will provide fleets with the tools, insights, and strategies needed to achieve organizational goals in clean transportation, emissions, while building both economic and environmental sustainability.
