Brazil's Energy Shift: From Spot Market to Long-Term LNG Contracts with US Exporters
Brazil is increasingly becoming the key Latin American customer for exported U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) while exploring possibilities to bolster domestic supply in the age of increasing data center demand and artificial intelligence competition worldwide.
Houston-based LNG asset developer and owner Cheniere Energy this week released some details of a long-term LNG contract with Brazilian energy firm Petrobras. Under the 22-year sales and purchase agreement, Petrobras would off-take about 800,000 metric tons of LNG annually from subsidiary Cheniere Marketing.
“We are pleased to enter into this multi-decade agreement with Petrobras, one of the largest energy companies in the world,” said Jack Fusco, Cheniere’s Chairman, President and CEO, in a statement. “We look forward to providing our secure and reliable LNG to Petrobras into the second half of this century under this new long-term agreement.”
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For the last several years the U.S. has been the world’s largest exporter of LNG, buoyed by historic levels of production from shale gas plays in the Marcellus, Utica and Permian Basin. Brazil is a net fossil-fuel importer acquiring more than 1.7 billion cubic feet of daily capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Regasification capacity in Brazil has nearly doubled to more than five billion cubic feet per day as of 2025, the EIA reported.
LNG is natural gas which is liquified through extreme chilling to make it compressed and more stable for shipping. Importers then re-gasify to use it in power generation and industrial processes.
US continues to dominate LNG exporting
The U.S. has supplied nearly 75% of Brazilian LNG imports for the past several years. South America’s largest nation is shifting from global LNG spot markets to long-term contracts as it seeks price stability, according to reports.
Petrobras has been negotiating with U.S. LNG producers much of this year.
“We continue to import on the spot market, but we are going to the long-term market,” Mauricio Tolmasquim, Petrobras’ director of energy transition and sustainability, told Reuters in an interview at CERAWeek in Houston earlier this year.
PetroBras signed a similar long-term deal with Sempra Infrastructure for U.S. LNG a couple of weeks ago. That 20-year agreement also aims at 800,000 metric tons of LNG delivery per year.
Cheniere Energy is the biggest U.S. LNG exporter with terminals at Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi, Texas. Sempra is a major stakeholder in the Cameron LNG liquefaction and export terminal along the Louisiana coast with the Gulf of Mexico.
U.S. LNG exports averaged 17.4 billion cubic feet per day in the first half of 2026, according to the EIA. This was nearly 25% higher than averages in the same stretch of 2025.
Meanwhile, Brazil wants to attract the same level of data center and AI factory development build-out being debated in the U.S. In fact, Brazilian Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira has urged his country to expand onshore drilling and fracking for natural gas to lessen reliance on imports.
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About the Author
Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing EditorRod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.