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Centrica has signed a major deal to import more gas from the United States in a move British gas owners said would boost Britain’s energy security.
The company announced an agreement to purchase one million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Delphine Midstream, which is building a new export terminal near Louisiana, for 15 years.
Centrica said the deal, worth $8 billion at current prices, could provide enough energy to heat 5% of UK homes for 15 years, once imports are expected to begin in 2027. It is said that there is
The United States has become an increasingly important gas supplier to Europe after supplies were cut last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The deal positions UK gas owners, who have signed long-term pipeline supply and LNG contracts with Norway and reopened rough storage facilities in the North Sea over the past 18 years, as leaders in strengthening the UK’s energy security. It is the latest attempt to establish A few months.
Centrica’s efforts to strengthen its LNG supply have taken a sharp reversal from pre-energy crisis when it was considering offloading another large US LNG contract, first signed in 2013, after the pandemic-induced plunge in gas prices. It also shows.
But as the energy crisis began in late 2021 and intensified after Russia openly weaponized its gas supply to Europe after its invasion of Ukraine, the company kept the deal.
The company’s marketing and trading divisions have grown significantly during the crisis, with adjusted operating profit of £1.4bn in 2022 compared to £70m in the previous year.
While the company is publicly focused on its LNG capacity to support gas imports into the UK, it could also send cargoes of supercooled fuel to other destinations depending on market conditions.
With much greater storage capacity in the EU, British traders are also helping to use the country’s excess LNG import capacity to bring in cargoes and send them through pipelines to continental Europe during the summer months.
Britain still gets about 50% of its gas from domestic sources, but its reliance on imports is expected to grow in the coming years as output from the North Sea declines.
The UK has a binding target to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, but the majority of homes are still heated by natural gas, and decarbonizing heating is the government’s biggest challenge. is considered one of
Natural gas could still be an important part of the decarbonized UK energy mix as it can be converted into low-emission hydrogen when combined with carbon capture and storage.
Still, European utilities are more reluctant to sign long-term LNG contracts than Asian buyers, generally preferring terms of around 15 years, while China has many contracts longer than 25 years.
