After a tepid company response saying it was “disappointed” in a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-sponsored study that supports export of liquefied natural gas (LNG), Dow Chemical Co. CEO Andrew Liveris unloaded on the report and its findings in a statement of his own.

“The report issued by the DOE on…LNG exports is flawed, misleading and based on outdated, inaccurate and incomplete economic data,” Liveris said. “The report fails to give due consideration to the importance of manufacturing to the U.S. economy. Manufacturing is the largest user of natural gas in the U.S. and creates more jobs and more value to the U.S. economy from natural gas than any other sector.”

Liveris took out his calculator to make his point. “The value of every unit of energy used by the manufacturing sector is multiplied by as many as 20 times from the production of thousands of high-value products though the value chain,” he said. “Compare this to the one-time value created by exporting energy as liquefied natural gas. Furthermore, for every manufacturing job created on the factory floor, five to eight more are created in the larger economy.”

The long-awaited study by NERA Economic Consulting was released Wednesday and said essentially that exporting LNG would boost the U.S. economy under all scenarios considered (see Daily GPI, Dec. 6). Environmentalists, such as the Sierra Club, faulted the study on environmental grounds, but it was praised by pro-export interests (see Daily GPI, Dec. 7).

For months Dow has been sending executives out on the energy conference circuit to talk up the benefits of abundant domestic gas — and the need to keep it at home.

George Biltz, vice president of Dow’s energy and climate change division, told NGI in October that the company had identified more than 90 capital investment projects (worth about $80 billion) that are in the planning phase nationwide, all of which have been made possible by the bounty of natural gas in the United States (see Daily GPI, Oct. 26). In August Dow’s Ken Bromfield, North American commercial director for energy, spoke out against LNG exports as well as natural gas vehicles and power plant conversions to gas (see Daily GPI, Aug. 27).

Since October, Dow’s tally of shale gas-inspired development projects has climbed, according to Liveris. “Industry has announced over 100 capital investments representing over $90 billion in spending and millions of new jobs predicated on abundant and affordable natural gas, none of which were captured in this report. Unfortunately, policymakers have been given a flawed report that overlooks vital dynamics, including a manufacturing renaissance that is already under way and much needed by this country.”

Some of those shale gas-advantaged projects belong to Dow itself (see Shale Daily, Dec. 5) and include:

Last April Dow’s Jim Fitterling, president of feedstocks, energy and corporate development warned attendees at a petrochemical conference in Houston that “as a nation and as an industry, we have the capacity to drop the ball on this” shale gas renaissance (see Shale Daily, March 29).

It happened before, Fitterling said. About 15 years ago federal government policies drove up gas demand, and prices, to levels that drove chemical companies away to other countries. “None of us quit making product; we just started making it elsewhere,” he said. “In a single decade there was a $26 billion swing in trade in the chemical industry away from the U.S. The only way to prevent that from happening again is to begin with a fresh script.”

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