America is the global energy leader: Energy Secretary Rick Perry
U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said on Thursday the debut of Dominion Energy’s Cove Point LNG export facility in Lusby, Maryland, sends a clear message to the EU that the America is the global energy leader.
“These are amazing times, but the message is clear,” he told FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo during an exclusive interview on “Mornings with Maria.” “The [U.S.] is blessed because of innovation, hydraulic fracturing and our ability to directionally drill, to have access to this shale gas… It is putting America in a place that we haven’t been in 60 years.”
The opening of the new plant comes on the heels of President Trump’s meeting with the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, at the White House. Trump said that Europe wants to become a “massive” buyer of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG).
“The European Union wants to import more liquefied natural gas, LNG, from the United States and they are going to be a very, very big buyer,” Trump told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday. “So they will be able to diversify their energy supply which they want very much to do- and we have plenty of it.”
The idea that America can supply its own gas, Perry said, not only impacts the strength of the economy but also puts the national security of allies in its best interest.
“They don’t have to sit there and be held hostage with just one supply of gas,” he said. “They can rest assured that the United States is going to be there — be a supplier with no strings attached.”
Perry added that Trump intends to take some market share from Russia, which is the largest supplier of LNG to Europe.
“The Nord Stream 2 and the Turkish stream coming in from the south – neither one is commercially viable -- they’re there so that Russia can be the sole supplier of energy for the [EU],” he said. “The vast majority of the EU understands that and they’re not for those two lines as well. Germany is, I think Austria has a tendency to be for it as well, because they have a company that’s going to help construct it.”