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U.S. President Joe Biden and European officials look poised to make an announcement Friday about new efforts to send American natural gas to Europe, as they aim to reduce that continent’s reliance on Russian energy products.
The move would come as Biden takes part in a range of meetings in Europe that are focusing on responses to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters on Wednesday that the subject of cutting European dependence on Russian natural gas “has been the subject of intense back and forth over the course of the past few days and weeks, and we will have more to say on this subject specifically on Friday.”
“You can expect that the U.S. will look for ways to increase LNG supplies — surge LNG supplies — to Europe not just over the course of years, but over the course of months as well,” Sullivan said.
Such comments have led analysts to make predictions about what kind of announcement could come on Friday regarding natural gas
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“We suspect that the Biden Administration is combining voluntary actions with some potentially creative legal authority to introduce some near-term shipments of U.S. LNG while much larger efforts are finalized,” said analysts at Height Capital Markets in a note on Thursday. “For several months, the Biden Administration has been reaching out to global suppliers and importers of LNG for ways to redirect cargos to Europe if needed.”
Analysts at Evercore ISI said their sense is the new effort will be “building on some organic moves by private parties to redirect gas shipments to Europe to take advantage of higher prices, even when it means breaking existing contracts.”
“We also see growing signs that the EU’s move to sanction or punitively tax Russian oil
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may come sooner rather than later, even as Germany holds the line for now against any similar move on gas,” the Evercore team added.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Union’s executive branch, said in a tweet Wednesday that she planned to talk with Biden on Thursday about how to prioritize LNG deliveries from the U.S. to the EU in the coming months.
“We are aiming to have a commitment for additional supplies for the next two winters,” she said.
A Washington Post report citing three unnamed American officials has added to expectations about the upcoming announcement on LNG. The report said Biden and European leaders plan to unveil “a major initiative to direct shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe.”
On Thursday, the Biden administration rolled out new sanctions against Russia on Thursday, and the president said during a press conference in Brussels that Vladmir Putin’s country should get kicked out of the G-20.
See: Biden calls for Russia to be expelled from G-20 as U.S. unveils new sanctions on Moscow
