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- Senior energy official says that the policy on gas is working
- Geoffrey Pyatt says he couldn’t speculate on future sanctions
Bloomberg News
The US will continue to “tighten the screws” on Russian liquefied natural gas exports to deprive Moscow of funds for its war in Ukraine, according to a senior State Department energy official.
“Our goal with Russia is simple: it’s to drive down the revenue it enjoys from its oil and gas resources,” Geoffrey Pyatt, assistant secretary for energy resources, and a former US ambassador to Ukraine, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Haslinda Amin.
The US sanctioned Russia’s new Arctic LNG 2 export plant last year, and then began slapping restrictions on ships that started picking up fuel from the plant from this August. So far no tankers carrying the gas have docked at a foreign port amid fears of US retaliation, a rare success for Washington in stymieing Russian commodity exports.
However, the US has stopped short of sanctioning Russia’s other LNG plants, including Yamal and Portovaya, which continue to deliver shipments to Europe and Asia. Measures against these facilities would likely tighten global LNG supply and push prices higher.
“Our policy is working,” Pyatt said. “I can’t speculate on future sanctions actions, but what I can tell you is that we’re paying very, very close attention to where sanctioned Russian cargoes are heading, and you can be assured that the Biden administration is going to continue to tighten the screws against Russia’s LNG exports.”
Part of the reason why Washington has aggressively targeted the Arctic LNG 2 facility is because the US is the biggest supplier of LNG, providing it with a “higher degree of freedom of movement,” Pyatt said in an interview earlier this year.
Drivers:
- Higher-than-usual LNG prices are indicating concerns that a cold northern-hemisphere winter could boost demand, according to Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill
- Russia’s role in the European Union’s LNG market is growing, even as the bloc weighs how to clamp down on supplies from the nation
- Estimated flows to all US export terminals were at ~11.8 bcf/day on Tuesday, down 11% w/w: BNEF
- LNG send-out in Europe was at 2.7 TWh/day on Sunday, latest available data; down 12% from a week earlier: GIE data
- European gas storage levels were 95% full on Sunday, above the five-year seasonal average of 92%
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