Gas-dependent Europe is trading one energy risk for another. Booming American supplies now account for about half of the region's LNG imports.
If gas delivered via pipelines is also taken into account, the USA is the bloc's second-largest gas supplier after its neighbor Norway - a major success for the North American country, which only began exporting its shale gas in 2016. Europe's decreasing dependence on Russian gas began even before Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia cut pipeline shipments and stopped offering spot volumes to Europe, according to some sources.