From The American Interest
Europe Can Thank US Shale For its Cheap Natural Gas
There’s a natural gas price war looming in Europe, and it has everything to do with cargoes of liquified natural gas (LNG) being loaded onto ships in Louisiana, across the Atlantic. Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom is fighting tooth and nail to maintain a grip on its most important market, but just as is the case with oil, the world is awash in natural gas at the moment. Gazprom already has a history of competing with Norway—the world’s third largest natural gas exporter—for customers in Europe, but as Europe continues to build out its LNG import infrastructure, the fight for the European market is becoming a global one. Bloomberg reports:
Europe’s two biggest gas suppliers provided a record amount of [natural gas] in the first quarter, according to Societe Generale SA. The glut discouraged cargoes of U.S. liquefied natural gas and contained growth of imports from Qatar. […]
Russia and Norway have been dominant suppliers to the region since the first pipelines were laid more than four decades ago. Their combined first-quarter shipments rose 18 percent from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from Gazprom and Gassco AS, Norway’s network operator. Together they provide more than half the region’s natural gas, according to lobby group Eurogas. […]
