U.S. LNG Exports Help European Natural Gas Storage End Winter at Record Level

The fallout from Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been multifold, with the human tragedy front and center. But it’s also reverberated across world economies as governments move to sanction Russia and corporations cut their ties with it. In a bid to minimize the impact on energy supplies and prices, the U.S. and its European allies have been grappling with how best to wean themselves from Russian crude oil and natural gas. That was relatively easy for the U.S. — the Russian import ban announced earlier this week by President Biden is likely to have only minor side effects. But the challenges for Europe are far greater due to its significant dependence on Russian supplies. If you’re stateside and trying to make sense of the market implications of all that — and trying to wrap your head around Europe’s energy infrastructure (and its approach to discussing energy volumes) — you’re not alone. In today’s RBN blog, we begin a look at what the European response could mean for the global LNG market.

With the war in Ukraine ongoing and Europe largely cut off or quitting Russian natural gas imports, many feared that global gas prices would skyrocket this winter, but prices have fizzled out instead and are at their lowest level since September 2021. That’s not to say gas prices are low, as they are still well above historic norms and high enough to incentivize LNG imports and the development of future LNG capacity. But despite losing its largest gas supplier, and prices running up in the months ahead of this winter, Europe appears to be in much better shape than it was last winter and gas prices have been relatively calm and on the downswing. So why is that? The difference between this winter and last largely boils down to storage inventories and the ability to attract LNG cargoes. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the European gas market, the impact of U.S. LNG supplies, and what it all means for developing LNG projects.

Escalating Russian aggression and LNG supply shortfalls, exacerbated by outages in the U.S. and Australia, have put the pressure back on international gas markets and sent prices in Europe and Asia back toward their winter highs. Around the world, high prices have pushed some end users out of the LNG market and spurred on the global, cross-commodity energy shortage that has had utilities and governments scrambling, sometimes unsuccessfully, to keep the power on. The European Union (EU) is pushing its members to reduce gas consumption by 15% through winter and parts of Europe face austerity measures. Some European countries are turning back to coal generation as the continent prepares for the prospect of a winter with less — or potentially even no — Russian gas. In today’s RBN blog, we look at where things stand in the international gas market and the ramifications for the winter ahead and beyond.