Data sources, accuracy and terms of use

About the data

Every LNG carrier broadcasts its position by AIS, the radio system ships use to avoid collisions. We collect those positions, detect when a carrier loads at a US export terminal and count the cargo when it leaves. The result is compared every week with the official figures of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the comparison is public.

Accuracy

Method check on history. On US Coast Guard AIS history for September–October 2024, we counted 96 cargo departures in four complete weeks against 98 reported by EIA: −2.0% in total, 2.0% mean weekly error.

Live accuracy. From November 2026 every week of our live count is compared with EIA's Thursday report. The scoreboard is on the US Exports page, including the weeks where we miss.

Limits

  • Coverage. Live AIS comes from volunteer receivers; where none is in range, ships are invisible. Today this is the case for Plaquemines LNG on the lower Mississippi and partly Cove Point. Their departures are missing from live totals, and the site flags this on the map, terminal pages and the exports page.
  • Delay. Positions are seconds to minutes old where coverage is good and hours old where it is thin; the age of every position is shown.
  • Estimates. Cargo volumes and carrying capacities marked “est.” are estimated, not registry figures. Destination forecasts are probabilities, not facts.
  • AIS errors. Ships sometimes broadcast wrong sizes, types or destinations; we filter the common cases, not all of them.

Data sources

  • Live AIS: aisstream.io, used with permission for this free, non-commercial site.
  • AIS history: NOAA Office for Coastal Management / US Coast Guard, MarineCadastre.gov.
  • Benchmark: US Energy Information Administration, Natural Gas Weekly Update (to January 2026) and Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report Supplement (from January 2026).
  • Port calls worldwide: Global Fishing Watch — Powered by Global Fishing Watch (satellite AIS port visits, non-commercial licence).
  • Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO.

Terms of use

  • This site is free and non-commercial: no advertising, no paid features.
  • Information is provided as is, without any warranty of accuracy, completeness or timeliness. It is not investment, trading or navigation advice; do not use it for safety of navigation.
  • You may quote figures from this site with a link to it. Automated bulk copying of the site or its API is not allowed.
  • Live vessel data: aisstream.io. Historical data: NOAA MarineCadastre. Benchmark: EIA.
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