A stretch of coastline on the Texas-Louisiana border provides a startling glimpse of Europe’s energy future. There, where Lake Sabine empties into the Gulf of Mexico, a giant port was completed last year. Built at a cost of $1.5 billion (£900m), it was meant to be a vital new part of America’s energy infrastructure.

Giant tankers from places such as Qatar and Sakhalin island in Russia’s far east were meant to dock there to inject their cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) straight into the national pipeline network.


The Sabine Pass terminal was meant to take about one ship a day but since it opened for business 18 months ago only 10 ships have come in.

“This big shiny new terminal was one of the ones built as the answer to declining US gas production and increasing demand,” said Steve Johnson president of Waterborne Energy, a Texas energy consultancy. “Now it’s in mothballs.”

It is much the same story at America’s eight other LNG import terminals. They are running at only 10% of capacity.

“We have had so much new production come on stream that all of a sudden the role of these terminals has changed dramatically,” said Johnson. “They are getting the world’s leftovers.”