Europe's dependency on a single gas supplier could completely change course in the next eight years, from east to west.

According to a new study, in 2030 Russia will no longer be the most important source, but America.

A politically qualifying equation of the two cases is, however, doubtful for several reasons.

Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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On the one hand, the United States is a democratic state governed by the rule of law, in which private extractors regulate exports, not state-owned companies dependent on autocratic leadership, as in Russia.

On the other hand, the USA delivers the fuel in a liquefied state (LNG) by ship.

When in doubt, this process can be replaced much more easily, quickly and at lower cost than with gas, which flows through a few pipelines whose network cannot be expanded quickly.

The investigation is a work of the Energy Economics Institute at the University of Cologne (EWI) on behalf of the industry association Zukunft Gas.

The paper, which will be presented in Berlin this Thursday and is already available to the FAZ, describes six different scenarios, depending on how much Russian deliveries are falling and how demand is developing.

In all cases, the importance of the USA as a gas supplier is increasing rapidly.

So far, they export around 22 billion cubic meters a year to the EU.

Even if all Russian supplies are maintained - which has not been the case since the Ukraine crisis - imports from the US will triple by 2026.

The study envisages three scenarios

The authors write that, assuming that the Putin regime's supply of gas will decrease or stop altogether, American supplies can be expected to increase sixfold to 130 billion cubic meters in the coming years.

That would be about 38 percent of total imports to Europe.

By 2030, the share could grow to 40 percent, roughly equivalent to Russia's contribution in 2021.

"In the medium term, dependence on gas supplies from the USA could therefore become established," the study points out.

“However, gas supply from the US would not be tied to pipelines, so there would be fewer complications when switching suppliers.”

On the supply side, the study distinguishes between three options: Russia continues to supply gas without restrictions, restricts exports partially, or stops exports altogether.

The first scenario is currently unrealistic.

On the demand side, a distinction is made between high and low global natural gas demand.

In passing, the paper mentions that both of the latter developments will lead to an average increase in global surface temperatures of more than 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.

The goals of the world climate conferences in Paris and Glasgow are that global warming should only be 1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial age.

The authors describe the European pipeline capacities, through which 75 percent of imports have passed, as a bottleneck in supply.

In the last normal year 2021, Russia accounted for 40 percentage points, Norway for almost 23 points and North Africa for 13.

If the lines to Russia fail, only the connections to Norway, Azerbaijan and Algeria remain.

According to the paper, the Scandinavians could expand their production by 2028, but then deliveries would decrease.

There will be reductions from North Africa earlier, as these countries need more and more gas themselves.

Germany is inflexible through its own fault

Consequently, the future lies in the regasification of liquefied natural gas, which so far only accounts for 25 percent of imports.

At the moment, France, Spain and Portugal have almost two-thirds of the EU's landing capacity.

They are therefore less dependent on pipelines than the rest of the continent, but cannot supply them because the inner-European pipelines are not sufficient.

This is particularly problematic for landlocked countries in Central and Eastern Europe, which cannot set up LNG offloading points even if they wanted to.

Germany's inability to do so is of its own choosing, as it is the only major country with access to the sea that has voluntarily renounced the corresponding terminals.

But now the Federal Republic is stepping up its game and is building more floating and fixed facilities on the North Sea than any other country in Europe within a very short space of time.

The first are scheduled to go into operation in Wilhelmshaven at the end of the year.

With the planned import from the USA, Europe will be the most important LNG market for the Americans alongside Asia.

However, the EWI assesses the importance of another beacon of hope as low.

Much has been said about the preparatory trip by Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) to Qatar, but there are still no tangible results.

At best, the emirate could increase its exports to the EU only slightly, the scientists state.

Because a large part of the quantities have already been promised to Asian recipients through long-term contracts.

Other potential suppliers such as Australia or Canada, which Habeck and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) recently visited hoping for new contracts, could not increase their exports "significantly".

They, too, would have tied themselves to Asia.

The study gives only a limited all-clear for the high gas prices.

Without procurement from Russia, the wholesale tariffs in 2026 are likely to still be above the level of 2021, despite new LNG capacities.

Previous prices could be reached again by 2030, but only if demand falls.

It is also clear that in each of the scenarios the European gas price will remain significantly higher than the American one.