The US administration is holding talks with Qatar to secure shipments of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) to gas-starved Europe, where prices are spiking because of half empty reservoirs and shortage of supplies from all sources, Bloomberg reported citing anonymous sources. The report comes amid continuing tensions around Ukraine and rounds of West's scaremongering that Russia might close its gas valve to pressure the EU – something that Moscow denies.
According to Bloomberg, President Joe Biden wants to invite Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to the White House later this month. The alleged meeting has been in the pipeline for some time, they added. The Qatari embassy in the US has not yet commented on the report.
The White House reportedly is seeking to secure shipments of gas from Qatar, the world's biggest LNG producer, for Europe in order to alleviate its allies concerns over the fuel shortages. An earlier report by Reuters, citing energy industry sources, also claimed that Washington was seeking ways of replacing the Russian gas on the European energy market.
The report suggested that Washington will have a hard time achieving this goal: several international energy companies told the US Department of State that it will be very difficult at this time to replace the Russian gas supplies to Europe. This was mainly supposed to be because of limited capacity to boost gas output in the short term.
Gas Shortages and Russian Sanctions
Right now, most of the world's LNG - including from Qatar - goes to the Asian markets. The US wants to explore the country's possibilities of expanding its output to help the Europeans, Bloomberg said. The latter have been concerned for some time over gas supplies to the EU in the light of ongoing tensions with Russia. The western countries accused it of amassing troops near the border with Ukraine and went as far as to allege that Moscow plans an invasion even though the Kremlin strongly denies it.
Washington has been trying to coordinate sanctions responses with the Eu in case Russia invades Ukraine, and has repeatedly boasted of reaching common ground on the issue. However, Bloomberg claims that the US has actually been frustrated with the way talks are going.
27 December 2021, 14:21 GMT
These talks coincided with the European politicians' talks of how Russia might use its control over gas valves to pressure the EU politically, and accused Moscow of artificially creating the gas crisis - even though shortages are being felt globally and the Kremlin assured that Russia will supply fuel in accordance with its contracts. The European gas reservoirs were nearly emptied last winter and were not filled during 2021 because most of LNG had been bought by the Asian nations.