Wyoming has something Japan wants. That something is carbon-reduced natural gas, and lots of it.
Getting it there is another matter.
Wyoming has already hit what amounts to the Great Wall of China when it comes to taking fossil fuels to Asian markets.
The state of Washington, for example, refused to license a coal export terminal that would have carried Wyoming coal to Far East markets. Wyoming sued, citing barriers to interstate commerce, but couldn’t get past that barrier.
There may yet be another path for Wyoming’s natural gas. Steel is already being sunk into the ground for a new export terminal that lies 30 miles south of San Diego, just over the border in the Mexican state of Baja California.
Though it is in Mexico, the new terminal is being built by San Diego-based Sempra Infrastructure, a subsidiary of American energy company Sempra.
The Energia Costa Azul terminal is a retrofit project for what was to have been an intake facility, Western States and Tribal Nations President Andrew Browning told Cowboy State Daily.
Western States is an advocacy group promoting North American natural gas exports. It has recently drafted a report showing how carbon-reduced natural gas from the Rocky Mountains — a premium product — could serve demand in Asian markets like Japan and South Korea.
“Phase one of the project is the retrofit of an intake facility that was built 20 years ago, when we thought we’d be importing 20% of our gas,” Browning said. “By this point, the first phase has been under construction, and I think it’s over 95% complete. My understanding is that it’s due for commercial exports in the spring of 2026.”
That initial phase will be contracted volumes of half a billion cubic feet per year, Browning said.
While those volumes have already been sold to other companies, the port will undergo a phase two expansion that will quadruple its overall volume.
“We are advocating that that facility utilize Rocky Mountain gas,” Browning said. “And we think our report makes a great case for that.”
Changing Times
The report Browning referenced is a roadmap that outlines two possible pathways for Rocky Mountain natural gas to travel to Asian markets.
The first is the southwest pathway through Baja California. The second one, which is probably the more appropriate one for Wyoming, does lie through the state of Washington. But times are changing, Browning said. So he believes even that is not necessarily out of the question.
“(Western States) was actually founded as an organization looking at the prospect of Rocky Mountain gas going to Jordan Cove, in Coos Bay, Oregon,” Browning said.
That project, too, was stopped at the state level. Federal permits were granted, but the state denied the water and air permits.
“The times have really changed since then,” Browning said. “It’s the fact that there is more energy needed. You are seeing significant development in need for gas for load growth, especially by power generation, and in some parts driven by clean energy targets and renewable portfolio standards.”
The recent advancement of AI data centers has only added to the demand curve that’s ahead for every state in the country, including Pacific Northwest states.
“They’re looking at a significant power shortage by 2030,” Browning said. “And natural gas is really one of the only things that could kind of fill that void.”
Gold-Medal Gas
It’s not just the demand curve that’s changing, though. Oil and gas companies have become smarter about low-carbon alternatives and have figured out ways to lower the carbon intensity of their natural gas.
Two of the real standouts in that arena are in Wyoming. They are Jonah Energy and PureWest Energy.
“These efforts have earned Jonah Energy the gold standard rating from the United Nations oil and gas methane partnership,” Browning said. “They’re a leader in low emissions natural gas production and showing how the Rockies can supply the world.”
Those kinds of efforts are helping Western States tell a brand-new story about Rocky Mountain oil and gas, Browning said.
“One of the first things we did when we founded the organization was to do a technical baseline analysis of the life cycle emissions reductions as a result of exporting Rockies gas to Asian nations,” he said. “And it was significant. It was a 40% to 50% drop. So, we feel we have a better story right now.”
It’s a chance to push the reset button on conversations about natural gas not just with countries like Japan, but across America, too.
“You don’t have to throw away your climate goals to use natural gas,” Browning said. “We’re part of the solution.”
A Japan Pipeline Maybe
Browning’s Roadmap includes several concrete action steps his organization plans to work on advancing.
But one particularly hopeful sign for the idea is that the report was released in the midst of ongoing discussions Wyoming was already having with Japan. Those discussions included taking the Cowboy State's carbon-reduced natural gas to Japanese markets.
Japan plans to keep some of its fossil fuels going, Gov. Mark Gordon told Cowboy State in October. But it still wants to reduce carbon emissions at the same time. It’s seeing Wyoming’s natural gas as one way it can have reliable energy and keep its carbon reduction promises.
“Wyoming’s natural gas is preferable to anybody else’s at this point,” Gordon said. “Because we can meet the UN protocol, so these countries that still have commitments to reducing their carbon really like Wyoming gas.”
Japan, Gordon added, wants to reduce its trade deficit with America. One way it could do that would be to invest in a pipeline that brings American natural gas to an export terminal for shipments to their country.
And Manufacturing
Natural gas wasn’t the only conversation Gordon had with Japan about investment in Wyoming. The governor also talked to them about manufacturing opportunities as well, like making components for the successful carbon capture device Kawasaki Heavy Industries developed at the Wyoming Integrated Test Center (ITC) in Gillette.
The ITC is a real-world testing site associated with the Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s Dry Fork Power Station. Its mission is to advance the commercial readiness of carbon management technologies.
In addition to testing carbon capture technologies, the ITC also looks for new uses of carbon dioxide, as well as other opportunities in petrochemicals.
The ITC claims to be one of just a handful of such facilities in the world where flue gas is available for larger-scale testing. That allows companies to take their processes out of a relatively tiny laboratory and test it against real-world conditions. That allows the companies to figure out how to scale their approach to commercial size.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
