“Having European customers, especially if supported by public money, could easily create a huge tranche of LNG supply,” Nikos Tsafos, a James R. Schlesinger Chair in Energy and Geopolitics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote last month. 

However, it takes up to five years to build a new project, and all new projects are planned with a 20-year investment horizon and firm sale contracts of up to 20 years. 

“For a European company that wants to be aligned with the continent’s target for climate neutrality by 2050, these time scales present a problem. A European customer might want gas in 2025 or 2030, but not in 2040 and likely not by 2045. This mismatch prevents U.S. LNG projects from moving forward with European help,” Tsafos noted. 

“There’s a big customer out there that wants LNG, but you’re not quite sure for how long,” Tsafos told the Financial Times this month.  

Europe wants a lot of non-Russian gas now, but, ideally, it wants to not want an increased gas supply a decade or two from now. The U.S., for its part, cannot currently ship more LNG than it is already doing as its operating export facilities are maxed out. For future projects, Europe’s 2050 net-zero goal and a push to reduce gas use overall is not good news for U.S. developers looking at long-term purchase deals and investments to bring their plans to operating projects. 

“I wish I had better news for Europe but it’s going to take . . . at least five-plus years to get anything of size done,” Jack Fusco, president and CEO of the leading U.S. LNG exporter, Cheniere Energy, told FT. “

 https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/LNG%20Monthly%20February%202022.pdf