The EU could accelerate the phase out of natural gas imports from Russia and end purchases within six to 12 months by replacing it with American LNG, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Reuters on Friday, after communicating the same to EU officials in Brussels on Thursday.
“I think this could easily be done within 12 months, maybe within six months,” Secretary Wright told Reuters, adding that “I definitely voiced the opinion we could do it faster.”
“On the U.S. side, we could do it faster, and I think it would be good if those dates were moved up even more. I don’t know that that’s going to happen, but that was dialogued,” Wright said, referring to his meeting with EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen.
The EU currently plans to phase out all imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027, under a roadmap to end dependency on Russian energy unveiled in May this year.
The roadmap calls for the EU to stop all imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027 by improving the transparency, monitoring, and traceability of Russian gas across the EU markets. New contracts with suppliers of Russian gas will be prevented and spot contracts (for immediate payment) will be stopped by the end of 2025.
Related: Australia Approves North West Shelf LNG Extension to 2070
“We are particularly looking at phasing out Russian fossil fuels faster,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in the 2025 State of the Union Address on Wednesday, without giving details how the EU could do it.
The U.S. has increased pressure on Europe to cut off its energy dependence on Russia and stop buying Russian oil and gas to reduce revenues for the Kremlin and force Vladimir Putin to engage in genuine talks on peace in Ukraine.
“The faster we phase out, the sooner you put pressure on Russia,” Secretary Wright told Reuters, as the United States is intensifying pressure on its EU and G7 partners to act with tariffs on India and China over their continued imports of Russian crude oil.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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