US President Joe Biden has announced an increase in liquefied natural gas shipments to Europe, a cornerstone of a long-term initiative to help reduce the continent’s dependence on Russian gas. Before leaving for Poland, Biden met with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, whom he received at the US mission in Brussels.
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UPDATES FROM THE UKRAINE BY FRANCESCO SEMPRINI AND NICCOLÒ ZANCAN. DIRECTED BY DANIELA LANNI, MARINA PALUMBO
The United States will supply the EU with up to 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas by the end of 2022. This quantity will rise to 50 billion a year by 2030. The EU is under severe pressure to extend the Russian oil and gas embargo as done by Washington and Great Britain, but German Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained that an immediate stop would cause a recession in the Old Continent.
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The EU recently unveiled a plan to replace Russian gas by importing an additional 50 billion cubic meters of LNG from global producers including the United States, Qatar and Egypt, but some analysts have warned that the plan is unrealistic. According to FT, the final quantity of LNG supplied to the EU would depend on commercial contracts. Much of the US production is already destined for countries around the world, particularly in Asia. Mike Yarwood, senior researcher at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said Europe should prepare to pay higher gas prices in the coming years to meet the plan’s goals. “I know that it is expensive for Europe to abandon Russian gas – pointed out Biden in this sense – but it is the right thing to do”. LNG import capacity is concentrated in the Iberian Peninsula but Spain has few pipeline connections to move imported gas to Northern Europe. The Eastern European nations most heavily dependent on Russian gas do not have the infrastructure to benefit from LNG imports with nearby terminals already operating at full capacity, which means they would have a hard time increasing imports further. Also for this reason, President Biden said that the second objective is the construction of more infrastructures capable of receiving LNG.