European Commission vows to ramp up demand for US gas

The European Commission has committed to attempting to drive demand for an extra 50 billion cubic meters per year of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the rest of the decade, as part of its attempts to wean itself off Russian gas.

Having announced plans to speed up the deployment of clean energy sources such as solar and wind projects, heat pumps, and renewable hydrogen under its RePower EU ambition, the EU executive stated in March: “Natural gas remains an important part of the EU energy system in the green transition.”

The commission has set up a task force on energy security with the United States and has committed to driving stable demand for more American natural gas as part of the arrangement. A statement about the task force, published on the commission website on March 25, said that the United States would strive to source at least 15 billion cubic meters of extra LNG this year, while attempting to reduce the carbon footprint of the fuel through measures such as the use of on-site clean energy generation at gas infrastructure locations.

The commission said it would work with EU member states to speed up the regulation for new LNG imports. With the US authorities, it will back final investment decisions for new import and export facilities for the fuel.

The eighth bullet point on a list of task force objectives was to reduce “overall gas demand,” through measures such as faster permitting for solar and wind projects, training for clean energy workers, clean energy procurement, smart thermostats, heat pumps, and fuel switching away from fossil fuels.