What goes on in Poland on the 9th of May.
Walker: Russia will make the expansion of LNG from the USA harder
– I believe in the construction of an LNG supply chain between Poland, the Three Seas region and the United States – said Andrew Walker, vice president of Cheniere Marketing and Trading at GAZTERM 2018. The media partner of the event was BiznesAlert.pl.
According to the American guest, his company has huge gas resources. – We export gas via pipelines to Canada and Mexico. We also export LNG. The trend of previous imports has been reversed. We expect to reach 20 billion cubic meters export to 2020 so as to be able to provide fuel to our partners around the world – he said.
In his opinion, Cherniere will soon be one of the five largest LNG suppliers that will have the second largest export power in the world. – Demand for LNG will grow. After 2022, the world will need more and more of this fuel. The expansion of our export potential will allow us to meet the increased demand. We can compete in terms of satisfying this demand in Europe in countries like Poland, but also in Asia, which is a dynamically developing market. Its demand for liquefied natural gas will stabilize in the 2020-2030 period at a historically high level. Poland will play a very important role in this context – convinced the guest of the conference.
He stressed that the American LNG can be competitively priced, among others towards suppliers from Qatar. Asked by the moderator from BiznesAlert.pl about whether Cheniere is able to compete with Gazprom supplies, he said yes, but rather in the long-term. – Gazprom is able to go low in the short term. They can do it, because the Russian government decides on the amount of export taxes, they also have the appropriate export potential. Of course, we can speculate whether American LNG can reduce prices in the same perspective. It seems that we can compete, but not in the short term, but rather in the long run. Russia will try to impede the entry of American LNG into the market. We want to be competitive – he said.
Mikulska: LNG from the US will work on Russia better than sanctions
Poland and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe are actively lobbying in the USA to support energy security in the region, also by using sanctions, in particular on Nord Stream 2 – emphasized Anna Mikulska from the Center for Energy Studies at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston during the USA-Three Seas Gas Summit held as part of the GAZTERM 2018 conference.
According to her, it is not important whether gas comes from Russia, but whether it is connected to political elements. In this context, she mentioned the concept of geoeconomics and the potential of US investments in gas infrastructure. – I think that the US could invest in gas infrastructure as a means of diversifying gas supply sources and supporting Europe’s national security – said Mikulska.
In her opinion, this would allow to solve two problems: lack of motivation for private investment in energy infrastructure and problems of political motivation in the European Union to liberalize gas markets.
According to the expert, American investments could be implemented in three regions: the Baltic, Spain and the Adriatic Sea. – First of all, there is the Baltic area in connection with the initiative of the Three Seas, in which investments are made in interconnectors, LNG terminals. The next zone is Spain with large LNG re-export capabilities, which, however, have no outlet to other markets. The third area is import capacity in the Adriatic Sea – she said.