Hopper and Fluor's Donovan also say there is a great deal of activity to develop export terminals in Canada, where proposed terminals are ahead of most of those proposed in the U.S.

Offshore Interests

Competition from Canada, Australia and other areas may be what ultimately limits LNG exports. If the U.S. does not build the export terminals quickly enough, other terminals in the world will be built and the U.S. could be shut out.

"That's the challenge for producers—to move forward to capture a portion of the market before it gets served by other development locations," Donovan says.

In another scenario, U.S. natural-gas prices could rise, making it uncompetitive with gas from other regions.

To get financing for LNG export terminals that cost $2 billion to $8 billion each, U.S. exporters would need a price advantage, or spread, of $3.40 per million metric British thermal units for 10 to 12 years, says the Brookings Institute.

That price is unsustainable, says Kenneth B. Medlock III of the James Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Medlock, in a study he did for Rice, concluded the market will dictate that the U.S. will export only 1.2 bcf a day—which is less than what already has been permitted at Sabine Pass.

Donovan, however, is optimistic. The good news from the NERA economic study "opened the door" for LNG exports by highlighting the net economic benefit of such exports.

Furthermore, Hopper says that, despite concerns, the market could tolerate both rising domestic prices and an increased supply. "We think there's room for both. There's room [for price hikes] in the resource base and the technology to discover" even more gas, Hopper says.