U.S. and EU to undercut Russian energy

The White House on Friday announced that the U.S. will rapidly increase exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe to diminish their dependence on Russian fossil fuels and strengthen European energy security as Putin wages his war of choice against Ukraine, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a joint Task Force which will organize its efforts around two primary goal:

1. To help the EU reduce its dependence on Russian gas;

2. To help it reduce its dependence on gas overall.

"And as part of that, we're committing to make available up to 15 billion cubic meters additional LNG this year through a variety of different means," White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters.

The move promises to raise concerns about the trajectory of global climate action. The construction of LNG terminals and other infrastructure could put the U.S. and other nations on a path toward using gas for years to come, even as those countries strive to phase out fossil fuels, advocates warn, according to a fact sheet released by the White House.

The Europeans will be working on building out their infrastructure to be able to accept up to 50 billion cubic meters -- between now and 2030, per year -- additional LNG flows from the United States.

"The basic notion here is that while we're making this clean energy transition and putting in place all of the tools and infrastructure necessary to have an economy powered by clean and renewable energy, while gas is still a substantial part of the energy mix, we want to make sure that the Europeans do not have to source that gas from Russia" - Sullivan said.

"And so, we'll get to work immediately on that in 2022, and then we'll build year by year between now and 2030, even as we make the far-reaching investments necessary for the clean energy transition"

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.