Posted on 01/30/2022 8:34:01 PM PST by BenLurkin
U.S. officials tried to persuade Europe for years to buy American natural gas as a bulwark against Russia, with the Trump administration dubbing it “molecules of freedom.” But most countries stuck with the cheaper Russian supplies, with some expressing environmental concern about the fruits of U.S. fracking.
Now, as Europe confronts the possibility of a serious supply squeeze amid Russian hostilities toward Ukraine, the U.S. is trying to help Europe secure emergency gas supplies. But there is only so much the Biden administration can do: Most American gas has been sold to other customers, and Europe has limited facilities to import more.
Russia, which typically provides roughly 40% of Europe’s natural gas, has sought to play down concerns that it could substantially decrease the flow of fuel to the continent. Analysts are skeptical that it would do so if it invaded Ukraine, noting that the sales are a significant source of Russian revenue. But if Russian supplies did get cut off during winter, Europe would pay a heavy price—it remains as dependent on Russian gas as ever to heat homes and generate electricity.
Poland and some other European countries signed long-term deals to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and built the terminals needed to take the shipments and convert them back into gaseous fuel that could be put in pipelines and sent to customers. In the past decade, France, Greece, Lithuania and a few others erected new terminals. But Germany and many others didn’t.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenyledger.com ...
Too bad, so sad.
That's pretty funny. We frack rock thousands of feet underground. The Russians will frack their enemy's cities. I wonder if that will generate any environmental concerns.
Also, which President was it that suggested the Europeans look into “Freedom Gas” ? I can’t quite remember, but it seems a little more recent than the end of the Magic Indonesian Flash Man.
how cheap was cheap?
Not to mention that Biden is a complete dipshit and Obama, who is currently calling the shots, is a Muslim jihadist.
Does it ever occur to anyone that for whatever reason, the Europeans are just not that concerned about the “Russian threat” that one constantly is bombarded with from US media?
It depends on which Euro country one is talking about.
To paraphrase the movie line from Dr Strange Love “so you prefer Commie Gas?”
How much of the badmouthing of fracking was disinformation from Russia and the Opeckers? Probably 99%.
The shortage of European facilities is a myth. The real problem is that the entire US peak monthly capacity is only enough for 5-6 days for Europe. That’s given that all American gas would be coming to Europe.
To make things worse, LNG producers are flexible in their exports and ship to where the price is the highest - Asia in this season.
So their lobbyists were somewhat effective in sabotaging Russian supplies, but then defaulted on European contracts and shipped to China instead.
Hence the problem is largely a trust issue. For all the talk of Russian gas as an “energy weapon,” Russian companies are more scrupulous in fulfilling their obligations.
Europe has a long history of getting themselves into quite a fix and then crying about it, expecting others (America) to come to their rescue.
Shoulda thought of all this before they allowed Putin to get ‘em by the sack.
lol
They hated Trump so they didn’t listen to him, instead choosing to listen to Greta. Now the’ll pay the price for folly once more.
The real action against Russia was that we didn’t need to buy oil at all under Trump, and this drove down prices worldwide. That hurt Iran and Russia the most, costing them hugely.
Now they have the money to play around because oil prices are back up because Biden (Obama) closed pipelines and other avenues of oil production.
умри грязным русским
You aren’t smart, Speedy, can’t even spell expletives right.
Yep, stupid Europeans brought it on themselves. Whatever replacement they are going to find will be much more costly.
It takes a Russian to read the post.
So we know you are a Russian.
Whom does it take to post it?:)
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