Billions of cubic feet of additional natural gas is now moving under the ground, thanks to the completion of 10 major pipeline projects in 2024, according to new analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Roughly half of that is natural gas that’s headed to Europe and other parts of the world through what’s called liquefied natural gas, which is slated to see export growth double over the next five years, according to S&P Global. So what is LNG — and why does the rest of the world want it from us?

This big new wave of U.S. LNG exports started in 2016. That’s after fracking revolutionized oil and gas production.

“With the introduction of that technology, the supply curve of natural gas that was available at cost effective prices really expanded significantly,” said Matthew Zaragoza-Watkins, an economist at the University of California, Davis.

Because natural gas plants run even when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow, natural gas pairs well with those renewables as a cleaner alternative to coal. And it’s cheap. 

“The United States has a comparative advantage over many countries in terms of our abundant supplies of natural gas,” said Ed Hirs, an energy economist with University of Houston. “We sell LNG to the global market. It goes to China, it goes to Europe, it goes to Asia and Latin America.”

But to get it around the world, pipelines and LNG export terminals are critical. It’s at these terminals where natural gas is sent through an industrial refrigeration process, said Richard Meyer with the American Gas Association.

“That super-cools pipeline gas to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit,” he said. “And that’s the temperature at which natural gas will turn into a liquid that really condenses the natural gas, makes it very energy dense.” 

But the infrastructure necessary to grow the LNG export market does face red tape, which is costly and time-consuming. Though some of that burden should go away under Trump, said Zaragoza-Watkins at UC Davis.

“The willingness of the current administration to issue permits for new LNG export terminals is going to be a significant boon to the industry,” he said.

That will relieve some of the regulatory uncertainty around LNG’s future.