Less than a decade ago, companies were planning large scale investments that would allow them to substantially increase shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the United States from Africa, the Middle East and Australia. This was spurred by the expectation that indigenous supplies would continue to dwindle and demand, particularly for power generation, would continue to grow. However, success in the development of domestic U.S. shale gas has turned this thinking on its head. In fact, growth from the production of shale gas in the United States has contributed to low capacity utilization of the LNG regasification terminals in North America, and modeling at the Baker Institute indicates that this trend is likely to continue into the early 2020s.

The recent and expected future...