U.S. liquefied natural gas supplies to Europe will continue to rise, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Reuters on Monday during a visit to the Polish capital Warsaw.
The United States is the world’s largest exporter of LNG and has played a major role in supplying Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 significantly reduced the amount of Russian gas piped to Europe.
However, now that U.S. President Donald Trump has rocked relations with Europe and turned to energy as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations, businesses are wary that reliance on the U.S. has become another vulnerability.
“The U.S. supply will continue to grow in a meaningful way. There’s a lot of dialogue about contracts,” Wright told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference. “I think we will absolutely see more off-take agreements for LNG from the U.S. in Europe.”
Amid the turmoil caused by Trump’s tariff policies, some executives in Europe have begun to say that importing some Russian gas, including from Russian state giant Gazprom, could be a good idea.
Wright declined to comment on the possibility of Russian energy returning to Europe in greater volume.
“I think the energy situation in Europe is probably largely going to be determined by Europeans,” he said.
Poland has so far turned to seaborne LNG delivered to its Swinoujscie LNG terminal to replace gas from Russia. It has also started to receive pipeline gas from Norway via Denmark and the Baltic Sea.
Poland has started delivering LNG sourced from the U.S. to Ukraine.
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki and Justyna Pawlak. Writing by Alan Charlish. Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Mark Potter)