The EU's natural gas Cold War and diversification challenges

Abstract

The 2022 Russia-Ukrainian war has scrambled Europe's natural gas landscape and led the European Union (EU) to develop new policies and seek alternative gas sources to curtail Moscow's revenues and influence. This article, through fifteen (15) semi-directed interviews with natural gas industry executives and researchers from Europe and several other world regions, as well as an extensive review of industry data, gray literature and producing countries' policies, critically appraises the new EU gas supply policies and actual possibilities for diversified gas provisions in the short and medium term. We found that there is a consensus among experts that it is impossible before the end of the 2022–2023 winter for the EU to secure enough additional gas supplies to replace Russian supplies by 2/3 as proposed by the REPower EU policy. For the EU, both the USA and Qatar may constitute important providers of additional Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) supplies in the medium term (2023–2030), thereby reducing the market shares, revenues, and political clout of Russia.

Keywords

• Energy diversification
• European union (EU)
• Ukraine-Russia War
• LNG
• Natural gas
• REPower EU