Just a little clarification. Current U.S. consumption is about 62 bcf/day, not 75 bcf/day. U.S. production is at about 51 bcf/day. The other thing is that according to a model prepared by Prof. Douglas Reynolds (University of Alaska-Fairbanks) and me, given a North American natural gas peak in 2007 and EIA-projected demand, the U.S. might actually need to import 13.8 bcf/day in 2010. This is in agreement with the calculations of the Energy Ventures Group. I talked to Bush's gas lobbyist, Ms. Dena Wiggins of the firm Sutherland Asbill and Brennan, and she said that this is what they expect too. However, the tankers are NOT going to be there to provide supply to these terminals. I think that if you're investing billions of dollars, you have to check if you're going to have adequate supply. So in the end I believe that while everyone sees the need for two and a half times more LNG than the official EIA projection, the terminals won't be built if the investors are worried about tanker capacity.
For petroleum, Henry Groppe uses an estimate of demand elasticity in the neighborhood of today's prices that says a $1/bbl increase in price causes a 100K bbl/day decrease in demand on a global basis.  It would be useful and interesting to have a similar ballpark number for natural gas demand in the US -- if the supply is constrained, how much will prices have to increase in order to make supply and demand equal?