Europe Is Projected To Need Natural Gas, And The U.S. Can Supply It

In this clip from Industry Focus: Energy, Motley Fool analysts Sean O'Reilly and Taylor Muckerman talk about a few of the most interesting highlights from BP's (NYSE: BP) annual energy outlook report.

Find out by how much GDP is expected to grow and what will drive it, how much they think global demand for energy will increase and how much will be for oil and gas, how much European demand for U.S. LNG imports is set to jump in the next decade or two, and more.

A full transcript follows the video.

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This podcast was recorded on Feb. 10, 2017.

Sean O'Reilly:So, BP's energy report. As I said, this is a doozy. CTRL+F was my friend when I went through this. A few basic assumptions that BP makes in its projections that I wanted to share with our listeners include, they think global GDP will almost double by the year 2035, driven by fast-growing emerging economies. This will also lift 2 billion people out of poverty.

Taylor Muckerman: They think population will have a smaller impact on GDP growth.

O'Reilly: Yeah, we're all going to get more productive.

Muckerman: More efficient, more productive, yeah. I wonder if that has anything to do with robots and automation.

O'Reilly: You think? I just watched Ex Machina; do not talk to me about robots right now.

Muckerman: OK, fine.

O'Reilly: Did you see that?

Muckerman: No, I haven't, but if it means they're evil, Elon Musk is on the task of making sure AI does not become --

O'Reilly: It's not about good or evil; they are amoral. It's just, are humans getting in the way of efficiency? Dun-dun-dun! Anyway, back to energy. Increasing productivity is actually going to be the cause of about three-quarters of the total GDP growth. Prosperity naturally leads to global energy demand increases. This might get balanced out, they think, by rapid gains and energy efficiency. Again, they're doing the best that they can, but you never know when innovation is going to pop up.

Muckerman: 2035, that's what we're talking about here.

O'Reilly: Demand increasing only by about 30%, they think. The fuel mix continues to adjust, although oil and gas, together with coal, remain the dominant sources of energy. I'm actually super interested to get your thoughts on that in a few minutes.

Muckerman: Yeah, sure.

O'Reilly: Renewables with nuclear and hydroelectric power provide half of the additional energy required all the way out to 2035. So, largest growth increase there. LNG is going to be a big deal, oil demand growing through the outlook. We're going to save that until the end, because that's one of my favorite statistics, when they think oil is going to peak.

Muckerman: Cliffhanger.

O'Reilly: Stay tuned, folks! And increasing penetration of electric cars in the broader mobility revolution will have an important bearing on future oil demand. That is, they practically admit that it's just, we don't know what's going to happen.

Muckerman: It's a crapshoot.

O'Reilly: Yeah. So, what were your favorite things in the report? What did you learn?

Muckerman: I think the LNG demand really sunk in for me, because Europe is going to be losing production of natural gas --

O'Reilly: And already super dependent on Russia.

Muckerman: Yeah, exactly. So they're going to try and rely more on LNG imports rather than pipeline imports of natural gas. And that could be huge for America, because we've seen a handful of companies pour a lot of money into LNG exportation facilities with one of them online now, two trains.

O'Reilly: Who owns that?

Muckerman: Cheniere Energy. That's down in their Sabine Pass facility. They also have their Corpus Christi plant that's been approved, construction has started on that.

O'Reilly: Ironically enough, Cheniere Energy --

Muckerman: Ticker LNG.

O'Reilly: I was about to say, the funny thing about them is their ticker is LNG, like, ha-ha, see what they did there?

Muckerman: And their former CEO and founder, Charif Souki --

O'Reilly: Named his daughter Natural Gas. [laughs]

Muckerman: That's funny, I didn't know that. Probably the first of its kind. When you have celebrities naming their kids random things, you might as well name them LNG. But he started his own new company after he got ousted as the CEO of the company that he founded. So it just went public this week or last week -- I'm getting my weeks mixed up because this is pre-recorded. But sometime in 2017, he had a new company go public that's trying to export LNG as well. Same guy, same idea, just a different company. Dominion [Resources](NYSE: D) has a Cove Point facility coming out of Maryland, supposedly online in the back half of 2017. All told, you're looking at maybe around 15 billion cubic feet per day of LNG import demand from Europe. In the U.S., we have about 10.5 billion cubic feet per day of approved facilities that are under construction.

O'Reilly: Wow! That 15 number for Europe, is that in 2035 or now?

Muckerman: That's in 2035. It's growing to that number in 2035. But they already rely somewhat on imports. But that is a growing need for them, and it looks like the U.S. is pretty well set up to supply that demand.

O'Reilly: I'm feeling good. Yay, America.

Muckerman: So there are a few companies out there. You have Cameron International, Dominion, and Cheniere, and then the pipeline and storage companies that are providing these companies -- I think Kinder Morganis providing some natural gas via pipeline to Cheniere's export facility.

Sean O'Reilly has no position in any stocks mentioned. Taylor Muckerman has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Kinder Morgan. The Motley Fool recommends Dominion Resources. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.