LIFE’S A GAS -OR A FIGHT FOR IT
October 16, 2022 -Durt Fibo

Yes, this is 2022, and the United States of America is now the largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG). As such, it has surpassed Australia and Qatar, although these still hold their places as the two greatest exporters of LNG. In America, producing and realistic limits of transport distances have helped keep costs for native industrial operations lower than in many other countries.

Which has in turn produced outrage in countries being billed for LNG imported from America. As Europe prepares itself to live without Russian gas (the 6th largest exporter as of July, 2022), individual nations are clashing over who considers what to be an equitable division of possibly inadequate supplies, and the EU fumbles to mold a consensus for energy price controls and even a possible consolidation of funds.

In the confusion of which, two of the EU’s wealthiest member-states erupted this week at the existential insult of being charged four times the price for American LNG compared to the internal US rate. The German economy minister, Robert Habeck, roared to the media against countries, “even friendly ones”, which “currently obtain astronomical figures” by selling their gas to the EU. This poses problems that must be addressed”, he said, insisting that the EU “talk to these countries.”

Bruno Le Maire, the French Minister of Economy said: “We cannot accept that our American partner sells us its LNG at a price four times higher than that at which it sells to American industrialists.” Le Maire added that “The war in Ukraine must not lead to American economic domination and a weakening of the European Union”. His fury currently being exacerbated by the major refineries strikes in France [see my article STRIKES AND DEMONSTRATIONS FOR A LIVABLE FRANCE October 16, 2022 -Durt Fibo], Le Maire explained that “an economic weakening of Europe is not in the interest of the United States [although it is, for corporate America -D.F.] and for this we must find more economic relations. balanced between our American allies and the European continent.”