Europe and the US make ambitious plans to reduce reliance on Russian gas

The United States announced a deal with European leaders Friday to increase shipments of natural gas to help wean Europe off Russian energy. And Germany set an ambitious goal of halving its imports of Russian oil and coal this year and freeing itself from its dependence on Russian natural gas by the middle of 2024.

Germany’s timelines, outlined by its vice chancellor, are a remarkable turnabout by Europe’s largest economy, which has long relied extensively on Russia for energy. Just a few months ago, Germany was still aiming to buy even more natural gas from Moscow through a new pipeline called Nord Stream 2.

But President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has forced leaders in Germany and other European countries to rip up the energy playbook they had used for years, decades even, in just a month. The German vice chancellor, Robert Habeck, said at a briefing in Berlin that his country was shifting away from Russian energy at an “insane pace.”


President Joe Biden is seeking to encourage similar moves by other European countries, in part by offering up the U.S. as an energy supplier.

The deal he announced, in Brussels earlier Friday, lacked many details but contained some big goals: The U.S. would send an additional 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas to Europe this year — roughly 10% to 12% of current annual U.S. exports to all countries. By 2030, the president said, the U.S. will aim to increase supplies by as much as 50 billion cubic meters a year.

The moves caught many in the U.S. energy industry by surprise. Oil and gas executives who have become accustomed to being pilloried for their contributions to climate change were suddenly being called up to help liberate European allies from Russian energy. While the industry was not certain how Europe would make such a giant pivot, executives clearly relished their new casting as saviors rather than villains.

Biden and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said many of the specifics would be worked out by a task force dedicated to reducing Europe’s dependency on Russian oil and gas in ways that would not undermine the climate policies of the two partners.