Fostering understanding of energy since 1982

The Energy Forum, Inc. is dedicated to fostering public understanding of energy issues including the energy market and industry and of the many challenges facing them in a rapidly changing world. Its regular public lectures and discussions on a variety of relevant topics provide a collegial platform where industry and academic experts, business leaders, policymakers, students, journalists and others can exchange information and ideas about energy issues and interact with one another in a non-partisan environment.

The US looks likely to remain the world’s largest exporter of both LNG and Petroleum (Crude oil and Petroleum Products Combined) for a considerable amount of time. Already crude oil export infrastructure remains inadequate, and it will almost certainly remain so. There is only one crude oil terminal – the Louisiana LOOP – with VLCC berthing, but it is far from the areas of surplus light sweet crude production, and is shunned by US Gulf Coast refiners, which have a diet of heavier and more sour crude oil. Some four deepwater terminals are being planned, but will they be financed and licensed? Meanwhile, on the LNG side, fairly soon pipeline capacity to move natural gas to ports will be inadequate and without the additional supply will stymie LNG export growth. At the same time, infrastructure bottlenecks impact the pace of energy transition including port facilities and pipelines to produce and export clean ammonia, storage for carbon capture and sequestration but, especially infrastructure for grid scale electricity and what is needed to accompany it to make power reliable, resiliant, redundant and affordable, no matter where in the world one might live.