Kenneth Medlock

Post image for False Alarms: Dow Chemical’s Campaign against Natural Gas Exports

Last week on this blog, I explained how Dow Chemical’s chief rationale for restricting exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) — the claim that gas used as a feed stock in domestic manufacturing adds more value to the economy than gas exported overseas — would also justify:

  • Curbing Dow’s exports of chemicals, plastics, and electronic components to help domestic manufacturers of paints, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, cell phones, laptops, and other finished goods become more competitive in the global marketplace.
  • Empowering bureaucratic agencies to commandeer private property whenever they think the resource would add more value in the hands of some other firm or industry.

Dow CEO Andrew Liveris would no doubt cry bloody murder if Congress proposed to give Dow a dose of its own medicine and restrict the company’s exports in the “public interest.” Presumably, Mr. Liveris would also disavow any sympathy for confiscatory centralized economic planning, although that is in effect what he is advocating.

Other rationales Dow and its allies invoke to oppose “unfettered” gas exports include:

  1. “Unlimited” gas exports could dramatically reduce the domestic supply of the natural gas liquids (NGLs) on which manufacturers depend as key feed stocks.
  2. Long-term contracts to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) will “lock in” deliveries to foreign buyers, subjecting U.S. manufacturers to high risks of price shocks and supply disruptions.
  3. Approving all LNG export applications that have been submitted to the Department of Energy (DOE) could result in “half” of all U.S. gas produced being burned for the Btus in overseas power plants, pushing U.S. gas prices to Asian levels.

These are all false alarms. Let’s take them one at a time. [click to continue…]