Table of Contents
The News
- With images of Russian aggression and war crimes in Ukraine continuing to dominate the media in Europe and around the world, Germany has pledged to cut its imports of Russian gas by two-thirds by 2023.
- Even more immediately, Robert Habeck, Germany’s vice chancellor and minister for economic affairs and climate action, now talks of the country reducing its Russian oil imports by half by as early as this June 2022.
The News
The Big Question
- If not Russia, then, Who will supply gas to EU?
The Possible Answers
The Answer – USA
US, a possible option
- Although, there is no shortage of gas in the ground, developing these resources and bringing them to market can take 3-5 years – or more if complex LNG facilities need to be installed.
- For the time being, there is only one readily available source of substantial extra supplies of gas – USA.
- America has come to enjoy the self-sufficiency in oil and gas that shale revolution has provided to them.
The problems…
- EU & US have signed a deal of 15 bcm LNG supply. Even with the 15 bcm of LNG from the US, Europe will still require another 140 bcm to replace its gas imports from Russia completely.
- Those supplies will have to come from a world market that was already stretched thin before Russia invaded Ukraine.
- And European demand for non-Russian natural gas will add to the pressure on prices for countries that depend on imports.
Does US want to become Saudi?
- For promoters, like the US oil and gas industry and some politicians, gas exports are a rational response to global needs and a welcome new source of revenue and jobs.
- For detractors, the promotion of gas for export represents an unwanted revival of the hydrocarbon-based economy. The gas exported from the US in the form of LNG will generate greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, adding to a global total.
- For others, increased exports will take supplies of gas, and probably of oil as well, out of the US just when consumer prices for all forms of energy are rising rapidly.
- Which way will US President Joe Biden sway? Putin’s war against Ukraine has put energy security back at the top of the political agenda on both sides of the Atlantic.
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