The first U.S. shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) arrived in Portugal last week and Gazprom did not immediately cut its own gas prices for Europe. While European media has hailed the entry of U.S. gas into the market as a game-changer and a monopoly-breaker,in the short term, nothing has changed at all.
Let’s first get things straight: Gazprom is not a monopolistic supplier for Europe, though it’s often called that. The Russian state giant actually supplies about one-third of the gas that Europe consumes. Norway supplies another quarter; so together, the two countries satisfy less than 60 percent of European gas needs. That’s not a monopoly, although the current supply mix means that Gazprom is the single biggest player on the European market.
The U.S., on the other hand, has quickly turned into the world’s biggest natural gas producer thanks to the shale boom. With prices pressed down hard by oversupply, U.S. gas producers are looking for international markets—and Europe is one obvious choice, but not the most lucrative.
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