\n<\/p>\n
President Trump\u2019s cabinet has been busy rolling back regulations<\/a> that will make it far easier to extract and produce fossil fuels. But who will buy them?<\/p>\n Nearly everyone, it turns out, particularly under the threat of tariffs.<\/p>\n At an annual energy-industry conference in Houston, executives spoke openly about how companies from around the world are seeking to buy American liquefied natural gas as a way of placating Mr. Trump\u2019s demands to either balance trade or face punitive measures.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re a nation who has a trade imbalance with the U.S., they\u2019re all asking themselves, \u2018What can we do to try to level the playing field?\u2019\u201d said Meg O\u2019Neill, chief executive of Woodside Energy, Australia\u2019s biggest oil and gas company. <\/p>\n They are cutting deals now, she said, in large part \u201cso their government can say, \u2018We\u2019re taking action. We hear you, Mr. President.\u2019\u201d Her characterization was echoed by Ryan Lance, chief executive at ConocoPhillips, one of the largest U.S. oil and gas producers, and other speakers at the conference.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Since President Trump took office, oil and gas companies from nearly every continent have dangled the possibility of investing billions of dollars in the United States.<\/p>\n This month Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean companies revived a $44 billion idea<\/a> \u2014 long considered all but financially impossible \u2014 to build pipelines and a giant terminal in Alaska that would export natural gas to Asia. Ukraine, eager to preserve its weapons supply from Washington, has signaled it will buy more American gas. South Africa, its aid frozen by Mr. Trump, is trying to cut a deal<\/a> to expand U.S. companies\u2019 drilling rights in its waters.<\/p>\n Whether all this will translate into firm deals is not yet clear. But the potential deals would lock in decades of investment in fossil fuels at a time when the global energy transition to cleaner energy sources is faltering. The burning of fossil fuels is the main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that are dangerously warming the planet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n South Africa, which had its U.S. aid frozen by an executive order that accused it of discriminating against its white citizens, is trying to negotiate a new trade deal with Washington. In that deal, the United States would get more access to gas exploration in the region, and South Africa would buy more of its gas from America, according to a government spokesman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ukraine, which is desperately trying to gain Mr. Trump\u2019s support as negotiations for a peace deal with Vladimir Putin develop, is signaling to Washington that it will buy U.S. gas in addition to trying to cut a deal on mineral revenues. <\/p>\n Ukraine\u2019s moves mirror a wider push in Europe to buy more gas from the U.S.<\/a> as Mr. Trump engages the European Union in tit-for-tat tariffs.<\/p>\n The state-owned gas company in India, one of the world\u2019s fastest growing markets for gas, said it would either buy a stake in an American L.N.G. plant or enter into a new contract for long-term supply.<\/p>\n Speaking at the conference in Houston, the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Sultan al Jaber, who just a year and a half ago presided over the annual climate-change negotiations<\/a> in the United Arab Emirates, said his company would also soon announce a major investment in U.S. gas production. \u201cMake energy great again,\u201d he told a room full of oil and gas executives.<\/p>\n The negotiations Mr. al Jaber shepherded in 2023 were the first in which all nations agreed to \u201ctransition away\u201d from fossil fuels by midcentury. But a key clause in the agreement noted that \u201ctransitional fuels\u201d \u2014 widely acknowledged as a euphemism for gas \u2014 would be key to making the transition \u201corderly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The potential deals pit climate concerns against foreign-policy strategy. Expanding gas consumption \u2014 purchasing contracts are usually for decades worth of fuel \u2014 would in many cases complicate carbon-neutrality pledges that companies and countries have made.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Gas emits less carbon dioxide than oil and coal when burned, but is nearly entirely made up of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas. U.S. methane emissions have been steadily rising<\/a> as its gas industry has grown to dominate the world\u2019s trade in the fuel.<\/p>\n The new U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright, is a former fracking executive. In an interview in Houston he said the Biden administration\u2019s temporary pause in early 2024<\/a> on federal approvals for new export terminals had made countries wary of investing in U.S. gas, despite the fact that L.N.G. exports soared under President Biden.<\/p>\n Mr. Wright said he had been meeting with prospective buyers in Europe and Asia and they had all been asking him, \u201cCan you assure me that the United States is going to be a long-term reliable supplier?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Xi Nan, who heads Rystad Energy\u2019s L.N.G. research team, said that because of the long timelines for developing any gas project, announcements shouldn\u2019t be taken as inevitabilities.<\/p>\n \u201cFundamentally, our forecasts haven\u2019t changed in terms of long-term L.N.G. demand,\u201d Ms. Xi said. \u201cWhat\u2019s changed is that the forecast for renewable energy demand is lower.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result, the energy transition \u201cis going to take longer than we thought,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n