Yet, while willing to give up apparent control of Europe’s energy market, what the Russian president didn’t foresee was to whom he was giving up the keys.
“The US has well played the role of filling the gap that Russia left and become the world’s largest LNG exporter.” This came to the fore earlier this year after President Joe Biden temporarily paused approvals for new LNG gas terminals, raising questions over how quickly US suppliers could ramp up production to meet growing demand.
It meant that 25 per cent of Britain’s total gas supplies were made up of LNG in 2023, with America by far the largest supplier.Put another way, the UK secured around 17 per cent of its gas from the US as LNG, with another 37 per cent imported as piped gas from Norway. Gas industry insiders see the flexibility of LNG and its ability to break regional pipeline-based monopolies as a massive benefit.
However, it is worth noting that the £21 billion Britain spent importing LNG last year is money all being shipped overseas, supporting jobs and suppliers elsewhere rather than in the UK. That’s because 180 of the UK’s 284 oil and gas fields are expected to cease production in the next five years, and with no one new ones to replace them, domestic production will dwindle by 2030.Experts describe how the industry is already preparing for a boom in demand by spending billions of pounds on new LNG terminals and fleets of ships to ferry fuel around the world.