The reason? He is spearheading a public campaign against increased exports of natural gas, which he sees as a threat to a manufacturing renaissance in the United States, not to mention his own company’s bottom line. But many others say such exports would provide far more benefits to the country than drawbacks, all part of a transformation that promises to increase the nation’s weight in the global economy. The debate has grown personal. In the words of Charif Souki, an energy industry executive promoting a new natural gas export facility, Mr. Liveris is both “self-serving” and a “hypocrite.” Now it seems that one constituency where Mr. Liveris had gained a sympathetic ear, the federal government, may also have turned against him. Last week, the Energy Department approved another planned project to export natural gas, the second such proposal it has accepted since May. The battle over natural gas exports reflects just how starkly the nation’s economic landscape is being reshaped by newfound energy supplies — much of the discoveries in the form of oil and gas being freed up by unconventional methods like horizontal drilling combined with hydraulic fracturing. As environmentalists and industry advocates debate the merits and risks of fracking, as the practice is frequently called, its consequences are increasingly visible. Last week, the government reported a sharply improved trade balance for June, largely because of lower oil imports. By 2020, new oil and gas production could increase the country’s economic output by 2 to 4 percent beyond what it otherwise would be, add as many as 1.7 million jobs and perhaps reduce the bill for energy imports to zero, according to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute. “This is a giant turnaround,” said Daniel Yergin, a longtime energy expert and author of a recent book, “The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World.” “This is fundamentally improving the competitive position of the United States in the world economy.” But that windfall is at risk if the government permits natural gas exports to increase quickly, Mr. Liveris warns. “What a hand the United States has been dealt!” he said in an interview in his office here. To nurture the nation’s good luck, he says, the government needs to plan an energy policy that carefully balances the interests of the oil and gas companies that want to freely export natural gas with those of industries like Dow Chemical that fear that an export boom could outpace domestic gas supplies and bring higher energy prices. An Australian by birth and citizenship, Mr. Liveris has emerged as the principal opponent of unfettered natural gas exports. Mr. Liveris has founded a lobbying organization to promote his cause, and he sharply criticized an Energy Department report last December that said liquefied gas could produce $30 billion a year in export earnings without meaningfully driving up domestic gas prices for consumers. “Why should we gamble?” he asked. “I think we should be out of the gambling business on energy policy. I mean, we’re not in the gambling business on food policy. We’re not in the gambling business on defense.” After spiking in the last decade, natural gas prices in the United States have hovered between $3 and $4 per million B.T.U.'s this year. That is down from a high of $12 before the recession, and a fraction of what it costs in Asia and Europe. That price differential is one reason exports are so appealing for domestic energy companies, who are willing to spend billions to build export facilities to ship liquefied natural gas in tankers in the hopes of selling it overseas. On the other hand, cheap domestic supplies mean Dow — one of the biggest private consumers of natural gas in the country — and other chemical companies are now paying much less than their foreign competitors for the raw material they turn into products like plastic, raising profit margins. It could also bring back jobs to the United States as manufacturers that use natural gas for energy benefit, Mr. Liveris says, although that renaissance is just in its infancy. Mr. Liveris withdrew his company from the National Association of Manufacturers this year when his ideas clashed with those of other members, particularly Exxon Mobil, which hopes to convert a Louisiana gas terminal that was built to import the fuel to process exports instead. In an interview, Ken Cohen, an Exxon Mobil vice president, said that having a major business leader like Mr. Liveris supporting “protectionism” is so incongruous that “it’s almost like man bites dog.” Mr. Liveris even came close to withdrawing Dow Chemical from the American Chemistry Council over the export issue, until the trade group modified its pro-export position.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 16, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the name of an industry trade group to which Dow Chemical belongs. It is the American Chemistry Council, not the American Chemical Council.
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