Approaching the second winter after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union has made real progress in overcoming the severe energy shortage that followed the August 2022 shutdown of the Nord Stream pipelines. Through the first nine months of this year, Russian gas comprised only 6% of EU imports compared to 38% in pre-pandemic 2019.
More than any other supplier, United States exports of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) have
stepped in to fill the gap: U.S. exports are at all-time historic highs and America is now the single largest LNG exporter in the world, with roughly half of U.S. cargoes going to Europe since the invasion and America rising to become the second-largest supplier of gas to Europe after only Norway.
It is impossible to imagine unified support for Ukraine between the U.S. and EU could have continued as it did without the long-term project of expanding U.S. export capacity and the rapid short-term expansion of import terminals in Europe. The EU paired the rapid expansion of temporary and permanent new LNG import terminals with demand reduction targets, accelerated deployment of renewable energy and electrified heating, and increased coal combustion; though European energy costs remain high and energy-intensive industry has languished, the shortage is no longer an acute crisis. In the near future, the U.S. should build on this success by continuing to play a backstop role for world energy markets, implement ambitious IRA policies to push down upstream methane leakage, and expand the global coalition of low-methane producer and consumer markets for LNG with stringent and transparent certification metrics. The U.S. is leading this pragmatic and orderly global transition to netzero.
