Blinken: US to supply Europe with natural gas for the rest of 2022
Washington will be providing Europe with just a fraction of its gas needs.
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Pipework at a gas receiving station, operated by Gascade Gastransport GmbH, in Mallnow, near Lebus, Germany.
On Sunday, Washington has provided a generous supply of liquefied natural gas to Europe and will continue to do so for the rest of the year, according to Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State.
"We very much support the European Union's efforts to put in place an embargo on the importation of Russian oil... The United States has taken a number of steps to help and so for example, to the extent that there are any gaps that result in the energy that Europe is getting, we have already redirected significant supplies of liquefied natural gas to Europe," Blinken said after meeting with NATO allies in Germany.
"The president's committed to continuing to do that throughout the rest of the year."
While the United States has offered to replace the void with more expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments, most of Europe's LNG terminals are currently at capacity, meaning there would be no space to store the fuel.
Furthermore, Blinken also spoke of NATO's forthcoming summit in June, which will be staged in Madrid and will assess the alliance's future relationship with Moscow.
Upon being asked whether he thinks a containment strategy would be the right concept to frame future relations with Russia and if the NATO-Russia Founding Act should be maintained, Blinken said, "A lot of these issues will be fully discussed and fully elaborated on at the NATO summit in Madrid in June and much of the work that we were doing today was in furtherance of that summit and the work the leaders will bring to conclusion including the strategic concept."
EU strikes deal to buy gas from US
By the end of March, the EU made a move to buy gas from the United States to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.
The European Union's agreement aims to buy at least 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) more from the US this year to lower its dependence on Russian natural gas, reported Bloomberg.
However, American imports would cover just a fraction of Europe’s energy demand.
Europe derives more than 40% of its total natural gas imports from Russia, having purchased over 155 billion cubic meters of gas in 2021. Meanwhile, last year's US LNG shipments to the EU totaled slightly more than 22 billion cubic meters.
