According to the U.S. Energy Information Association (IEA), U.S. storage of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) is 12% below the five-year average (LINK). Additionally, the IEA is expecting the U.S. to export 11.7 billion cubic feet of LNG per day during the fourth quarter of 2022 — up 17% from the third quarter. The destination of that export is Europe.
Consider that 43% of U.S. households use LNG for home heating, and power suppliers use LNG to create electricity. With the massive 2022 exports of LNG to Europe (+17% in fourth quarter alone), that means lower domestic supplies and increased prices here in the United States for electricity and home heating. We are seeing and feeling these massive price increases right now. As a result, consider this reality….
Not only are U.S. taxpayers directly paying for the majority of costs in Ukraine, but we are also subsidizing the European Union by exporting LNG and driving up the price here at home.
We are directly paying Ukraine, and indirectly paying Europe to maintain gas sanctions against Russia. This is the reality of the current situation as created by the Biden administration.
Now, consider this. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen held a press conference in Brussels today, announcing five initiatives to contain the expensive EU energy crisis: “The goal is clear. We must cut the revenues of Russia that Putin uses to finance this atrocious war against Ukraine. And now our work is paying off. At the start of the war, gas from Russian pipelines accounted for 40% of all imported gas. Today it has dropped to only 9% of our gas imports. These are tough times. But I am convinced that Europeans have the economic strength, the political will and the unity to maintain the upper hand,” she said. The United States and Norway are the primary suppliers of gas to the EU to fill the void.
Commissar von der Leyden’s five initiatives include:
(1) Conservation of electricity through forced and mandated cuts in electricity use. The amount of the cut has yet to be determined but reducing demand through forced curtailment of electricity use is the first approach. [Insert California as an example here in the United States.]
(2) A cap on the profit generated by energy suppliers who use renewable energy like wind and solar. The renewable industry has lower costs, yet they are profiting from the top line increase in delivered electricity. The EU commissar is proposing to confiscate the profits of Green Energy suppliers, direct the funds to the member states and then use those funds to subsidize the energy costs of poorer EU citizens.
(3) A cap on the profits generated by traditional fossil fuel energy suppliers (oil, coal, nuclear, gas electricity generation), and the diversion of those profits following the same formula as above.
(4) Banking support and financial liquidity for smaller regional energy providers who are having short term financial issues as they must pay massive amounts of money for the raw material needed to generate electricity. Essentially, the cost of coal, oil and LNG has skyrocketed, and there is a lag between the time they energy company must pay for the fuel source and the time the customer pays the electricity bill. The inbound fuel costs (new) are so extreme the inbound payments for prior electricity (old) are not covering the cost of the new supplier purchase.
(5) A price cap on Russian natural gas. To accompany the increased import of Norwegian and U.S. gas. This sounds like a bizarro effort to manipulate the market which could backfire. If Russian gas is cheaper than EU market gas, the smart energy providers will purchase the Russian gas.
Not a single word about increasing the supply of any traditional energy resource. These ideologues are so committed to the cult of climate change and renewable energy, they are intent on destroying the economy in order to lower demand to the level of their windmills and solar farms. This is madness, absolute madness.
Here’s the presser:
