U.S, UK Launch Partnership To Boost Energy Security And Lower Prices
The United States and the UK announced on Wednesday a new energy partnership in which they will work together to bring global energy prices down and boost energy security.
Under the ‘UK-US Energy Security and Affordability Partnership’, the two allies will look to reduce global dependence on Russian energy exports, stabilize energy markets, and increase collaboration on energy efficiency, nuclear, and renewables, the UK government said today.
Senior officials from the UK government and the White House will lead the new UK-US Joint Action Group, which will work to cut global reliance on Russian energy sources, advance renewables and green hydrogen use, and promote civil nuclear energy.
As part of the partnership, the U.S. will look to export large volumes of LNG over the next year via UK import terminals. The U.S. will aim to export at least 9-10 billion cubic meters of LNG over the next year to UK terminals, which would be more than double the level exported in 2021.
“This will be good for both UK and European partners as we look to replenish gas storage next year,” the UK government said.
The UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak commented, “Together the UK and US will ensure the global price of energy and the security of our national supply can never again be manipulated by the whims of a failing regime.”
The U.S. has already boosted LNG supply to the European Union. In March, just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU and the U.S. agreed to boost American LNG exports to the EU by 15 bcm in 2022 compared to 2021. This year alone, between January through October, around 48 bcm of LNG was exported from the U.S. to the EU, which is 26 bcm more than for the full year of 2021, participants in the latest meeting of the EU-US Task Force on Energy Security said last month.
“Building on this trend, the participants committed to work on keeping a high level of LNG supplies to Europe in 2023 of an additional approximately 50 bcm as compared to 2021,” the task force said.