The European Union’s competition chief has warned against relying “too much” on US liquefied natural gas imports as the bloc looks to diversify its energy basket.
“We know that we cannot rely on Russian gas, and that we should pay attention not to rely too much on American gas,” Teresa Ribera told RTE Radio in an interview on Tuesday.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe has replaced some of its lost Russian gas volumes with US LNG, and has been under pressure to bump up those purchases. A trade deal with Washington last year included a commitment to purchase $750 billion in US energy by 2028.
Ribera’s comments come as US President Donald Trump’s stance on Greenland has the continent on edge. Although he has vowed not to use force to take over the territory, his ‘framework’ deal with NATO involves stationing US missiles and mining rights aimed at keeping Chinese interests out. It also hinges on the US leader standing by his promise not to impose tariffs against European nations, Bloomberg reported.
The EU agreed last year to accelerate a phaseout of Russian gas and sever ties with its once-primary supplier of the fuel. Energy companies have closely monitored the bloc’s strategy to seek alternative sources and also speed up its renewables rollout as it aims to zero-out emissions by 2050.
If Europe fulfills all its supply deals for US LNG and its gas demand reduction efforts falter, as much as 80% of its imports could come from the US in 2030, up from 57% in 2025, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said in a report earlier this month.
The EU still receives about 15% of its LNG supplies from Moscow, making Russia the second-largest provider of the fuel to Europe after the US.
As more US LNG facilities come online, “the reality is that a lot of gas will be coming onto the market from the US over the next three years,” Michael Lewis, CEO of German utility Uniper SE said at conference in Berlin. “We will never repeat the mistakes of the past in Germany. We will never be as dependent on the USA as we were on Russia in the past.”
Despite the current tensions, some experts see little risk of the US curbing gas exports to Europe, given that it doesn’t export LNG to China and has few other major buyers globally.
“The idea that the US could stop exporting to Europe seems quite dangerous,” Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a global research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy, said in a LinkedIn post. “US LNG dearly needs Europe in the current geopolitical environment.”
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