A senior official with the US Department of Energy offered a vigorous defence of the Biden Administration’s pause on licensing new liquefied natural gas export projects, saying the decision was based on public interest considerations and not political pressure.

Brad Crabtree, assistant secretary for the department’s Office of Fossil Energy & Carbon Management, emphasised that President Joe Biden’s announcement last week to halt approvals of new LNG export schemes was meant to give the government time to update the environmental and economic analysis the department uses in approving projects.