US: LNG exports expected to drive growth in natural gas trade

The United States is expected to become a net exporter of natural gas by 2018.
The United States is expected to become a net exporter of natural gas on an average annual basis by 2018, according to a February 2017 US Energy Information Administration study. The transition to net exporter is driven by declining pipeline imports, growing pipeline exports, and increasing exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). In most cases of the study, the United States is also projected to become a net exporter of total energy in the 2020s, mainly because of increasing natural gas exports. In the Reference case, natural gas production is projected to grow through 2020 at about the same rate (3.6% annual average) as it has since 2005, when production of natural gas from shale formations began to grow rapidly.
As several LNG export projects currently under construction are completed, LNG exports are expected to make up a growing share of natural gas exports and to surpass pipeline exports of natural gas by 2020.
By 2035, the US may have surpassed Australia and Qatar to become the world’s biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas, according to the chief executive officers of Canadian energy giant Enbridge Inc. and LNG exporter Tellurian Inc.

See also the Bloomberg website