It wasn’t specified where the gas would come from,although clearly much of it in the near term will come from the US,now the world’s largest LNG exporter and the producer with the most uncontracted gas. About 70 per cent,perhaps a bit more,of LNG production from Qatar and Australia is committed under long-term contracts.
The EU is reliant on Russia for about 40 per cent of its gas,or the equivalent of about 120 Bcm,most of which flows through pipelines.
On paper,the 30 per cent or so of LNG – about 135 million tonnes of LNG a year -- that hasn’t been contracted and which is sold in the spot market ought to be sufficient to meet Europe’s needs but that would only happen if it was the only buyer of those spot cargoes and had the infrastructure to handle the massive shift in its energy supplies. Neither of those prerequisites is in place.
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Much of the world’s export gas is produced from remote offshore locations,piped to distant onshore processing facilities – giant refrigerators -- where it is liquified and then transported via massive and highly-specialised LNG carriers. At its destination it is received at import terminals specifically configured for LNG,regasified and then distributed via domestic pipeline networks.
Apart from the currently tight market for LNG and the relatively modest amounts of uncontracted supply,there isn’t much spare capacity within the world’s processing plants,nor does Europe have the import terminals or domestic pipeline networks to manage a dramatic reorienting of its energy supply overnight.
Also,given the tightness of the available supply and that LNG production and distribution is in the hands of private companies,the cost of trying to manage a rapid shift in Europe’s sources of supply would be prohibitive. Gas prices in Europe had soared even before Russia invaded Ukraine as Russia withheld all but its minimum contracted tonnages from Europe.