Europe’s LNG strategy is better late than never

Infrastructure buildout will give EU better options in 2023 and even more in 2024

The Russia crisis was a wake-up call for Europe’s energy strategy as it rushed to change its complacent and inward-looking approach to gas security. Some have criticised its push for gas diversification as an expensive insurance policy or its LNG infrastructure plans as too little, too late. But the key take-away is that you can never have enough energy options. Europe was shaken out of its pipeline comfort zone by the need to wean itself off Russian supplies and move to become a global LNG player. The EU scrambled to replace close to 80bn m³ of Russian piped deliveries in 2022 as LNG went from being the marginal molecule to accounting for almost two-thirds of Europe’s gas imports. As such,