Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Winberg Participates in the World Gas Conference

This week, the 27th World Gas Conference convened in Washington, D.C. The triennial event, hosted by the International Gas Union since 1931, is the world’s largest gas conference, gathering industry experts, business leaders, policy makers, and government officials together to discuss challenges and issues facing the gas industry.

With the theme of “Fueling the Future,” the conference is focusing on the future role of natural gas as an energy resource that is clean, abundant, economical, and sustainable. Representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy were on hand to speak about the United States’ efforts to secure natural gas as a reliable energy source into the future.

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry spoke at the conference’s opening ceremony on Tuesday and gave the keynote speech on “The Role for Gas in an Integrated Americas” on Thursday.

During the conference, Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy (ASFE) Steven Winberg participated in a gas roundtable with the delegation from Portugal and in a panel discussion on “Investing in Innovation for the Global Gas Industry Panel.”

During these sessions, ASFE Winberg spoke about how the expansion of U.S. natural gas has enabled the United States to not only become the global leader in natural gas production, but also a net exporter of natural gas on an annual basis last year—for the first time since 1957.

He noted that in 2017, the United States produced about 73 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas and exported 2 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day, which according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, is four times that of 2016 exports.  As of April 2018, exports were 2.7 Bcf per day.

In addition to the growth of domestic natural gas production and exports, ASFE Winberg spoke about the United States’ commitment to furthering the use of natural gas globally.

“The United States remains ready, willing, and able to export LNG to the world,” he said. “The U.S. government and American companies stand ready to help other countries to develop the capacity not only to import LNG, but to deploy leading-edge technologies and infrastructure that can use this fuel.”

Additionally, staff members from the Office of Fossil Energy (FE) hosted a booth during the exhibition portion of the conference, sharing information about FE’s natural gas programs.

One of the workshops during the conference also centered on the “Understanding Natural Gas and LNG Options” handbook, which FE and the Office of International Affairs published with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

To learn more about the event, visit the World Gas Conference’s website.