Cameron Parish LNG boom transforms hurricane-ravaged Louisiana community

Analysts say Europe’s US LNG reliance drives up household energy costs

On a marsh in Cameron Parish where cattle once grazed sits Sabine Pass, the world’s largest LNG export terminal, which started sending the fuel overseas in 2016 and can process 29.5 million tonnes a year. The parish is also home to two other LNG terminals, and a fourth — Commonwealth LNG, a $13bn project whose parent company is Caturus — began construction in May.

Michael Fewell, who was 16 when Hurricane Rita tore through the coastal county in 2005, destroying or badly damaging more than 90% of homes with a repair bill of $2.75bn, is now president of the elected council that runs the parish. “It looked like a war zone,” Fewell recalled. He said the parish, population approximately 4,700, is on course to become one of the wealthiest in the region. “We are going to have more money than we need,” he said.

Go back a decade, and the US barely exported any LNG. It is now the world’s biggest supplier, and Louisiana ships around 60% of it, sourced via pipelines from elsewhere in the state, Texas, and from as far away as Pennsylvania. Two-thirds of Louisiana’s LNG exports leave from Cameron Parish.

Commonwealth LNG is expected to produce 9.5 million tonnes of LNG a year by 2030. Across all its terminals, Cameron Parish is projected to receive tax revenues of more than $4bn over the next decade.

Tim Wyatt, president of Caturus, said the US is experiencing an LNG boom because of fundamental supply advantages. “There is cheap, abundant supply here, while being a flexible, reliable, relatively low cost and transparent producer that flows to the places that need it the most,” he said.

Much of the overseas demand comes from Europe, which following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 rushed to replace Russian natural gas. This year’s US-Israel conflict with Iran has increased that reliance further, as Iran’s efforts to block the Strait of Hormuz have hit LNG exports from Qatar, another key supplier.

The US now supplies about two-thirds of Europe’s gas imports, up from roughly a quarter in 2021, according to energy analysts at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Susan Bourgeois, secretary of Louisiana Economic Development, said the state’s LNG exports have helped Europe improve its supply security. “They want reliable relationships for their energy,” Bourgeois said. She said Europe values dependability and predictability in its energy suppliers.

That dependence carries a cost. Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, an analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said Europe is now reliant on US LNG supplies and competing with Asia for the same cargoes, which pushes up prices. She said the EU is expected to get as much as 80% of its LNG imports from the US by 2030.

The impact is felt most acutely in Germany, the EU’s biggest manufacturer, producing more than a quarter of the bloc’s industrial output. At InfraLeuna, a chemicals and plastics industrial park in central Germany, boss Christof Guenther said the site’s annual gas bill has climbed from €60m before the war in Ukraine to an expected €200m this year amid the Iran crisis. American gas, after being liquefied and shipped across the Atlantic, is far more expensive than US domestic prices, he said. “Natural gas prices in the US are about 20 to 25% of the prices we are paying here,” Guenther said.

With natural gas accounting for 12% of German power generation and half of German homes fitted with gas boilers, households are also affected. The average home now pays 31% more for its electricity than before the Ukraine war, according to Clean Energy Wire, a Berlin-based news outlet covering Germany’s energy transition. Gas prices for German households are up more than 74% over the same period, per the same source. Across the EU, household electricity bills have risen 30% since 2021, according to official Eurostat figures. In the UK, electricity prices are around 38% higher than in mid-2021 and gas prices are up 120%, according to data by the regulator Ofgem.

Jaller-Makarewicz said this is the new normal until the EU reduces its gas consumption. However, a 2025 US-EU trade deal committing Europe to $750bn of American energy over three years — including LNG, oil and nuclear fuel — locks the relationship in further.

Back in Cameron Parish, Fewell pointed to the wealth creation the LNG boom has brought. He said median local household income was $75,000 in 2024, up by a quarter from $59,555 in 2010. When asked about pushback from the local community, including frustration with increased ship traffic and concerns about dredged material spilling into nearby waters — in one incident last year, around 15,000 cubic yards of removed material spread beyond its permitted area — Fewell acknowledged “some local annoyance.”

“If I had one dream,” he said, “it’s to bring our youth back to our parish.” His own children can look ahead to high-paying jobs without leaving home, a future he said he never thought possible while growing up there.