The US-European energy relationship has moved from multibillion-dollar projects crossing several countries' borders to smaller, focused efforts that separate governmental and private sector functions, speakers suggested at a May 5 Atlantic Council discussion.
More diversified energy supplies for Europe are still the main goal, they added. But development of a floating, instead of onshore, LNG terminal offshore Croatia has created different opportunities, they said a day after the European Union-US Energy Council's latest meeting.
Since its creation in 2009, the council has brought top EU and US government officials together regularly to discuss common goals, including global and regional security and open, transparent, and competitive markets.
In addition to using more LNG and increasing storage capacity, the strategy is to build new terminals to receive gas from the Caspian basin as well as Mediterranean suppliers including Egypt, Israel, and Cyprus, European Commission Director General for Energy Dominique Ristori said.
"We are pushing to develop new energy infrastructure for central and southeastern Europe," he said at the discussion. "At the same time, we will push for reforms in all these countries. We not only plan to fight corruption, but to push for new rules that will help all of Europe diversify."
Amos Hochstein, special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs at the US Department of State, said frequent consultations have made multibillion-dollar projects obsolete. "The industry and private sector move so fast that such projects become obsolete before they can be completed," he said.
The Krk Island floating LNG terminal will matter as much to Hungary and Austria as to Croatia, Hochstein said. "These projects mean that instead of spending tens of billions of dollars, we can spend less with help from the private sector and achieve a better result of gas-on-gas competition," he said.
Different responsibilities
"The conversation has changed," Hochstein said. "By moving to floating terminals and having offtake contracts, companies are well positioned to do more financing for the terminals. Countries can then finance the enabling infrastructure, such as putting in compressor stations and reversing pipeline flows."
Ristori said, "We are confronted with a changing world in the oil and electricity as well as the gas markets. Our common responsibility in the EU and US is to consolidate these changes to our countries' benefits. We should shift from a position where countries can control not just prices, but destinations."
Holstein said, "The US has promoted the idea of a true energy union not dominated by large projects in a handful of countries. This is important not just to the US and EU, but also the rest of the