EU seeks more US gas, renewable energy to replace Russian supplies

By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will seek more gas from countries including the U.S. to replace Russian supplies, and expand renewable energy faster to cut its overall reliance on the fuel, the EU's energy commissioner has said.

The EU has pledged to quit Russian fossil fuels by 2027 in response to Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. While Russian pipeline gas deliveries have plunged, the EU increased its imports of Russian liquefied natural gas last year.

"Instead of using taxpayers' money, citizens' money, to pay for gas where the revenue goes into Putin's war chest, we need to make sure that we produce our own energy," EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen said in a joint media interview, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Jorgensen said Brussels was preparing changes to permit rules to speed up building renewable energy. For industries and home heating where gas cannot be quickly replaced by electricity, he said the EU would step up efforts to source alternative supplies.

"And then it's my job to make sure that it is cheap and not Russian," he said.

"There will still be the need for gas, and there we will have to find other sources than Russia, and that can also mean bigger import from the U.S."

European benchmark gas prices rose to two-year highs last week.

U.S. President Donald Trump warned before taking office in January the EU would face trade tariffs unless it imported more oil and gas from the United States.

The European Commission does not directly purchase gas, but has drawn up plans to engage with LNG suppliers and consider investing in LNG export infrastructure abroad to try to secure more long-term contracts with stable prices, draft documents reported earlier this week by Reuters showed.

Under EU law, European gas contracts must end by 2049 to align with the bloc's climate change target for net zero emissions by 2050.

Jorgensen declined to comment on the leaked draft documents, which the Commission is expected to publish next week.

But he confirmed the Commission was working on stricter controls of the gas market to avoid speculative trading causing price spikes, and would propose "financial instruments" next week designed to decouple retail power prices from high gas prices.

The EU's electricity market rules mean that, despite Europe's rapid expansion of renewable energy, the price of gas continues to set the power price many European consumers pay.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)