Representatives from the EU and the U.S. will gather in Brussels on Thursday for the first-ever business energy forum to discuss enhancing transatlantic LNG trade, the European Commission (EC) announced on Tuesday.
The sides will also discuss the role that competitively-priced U.S. LNG can play on the EU market and the growing opportunities for using LNG in the transport sector at the forum that will be hosted by Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete and the U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.
'The forum is an important deliverable of the Joint Statement of 25 July 2018 in Washington D.C., where President Juncker and President Trump agreed to strengthen EU-U.S. strategic cooperation with respect to energy,' the statement said.
According to the EC, U.S. LNG imports to the EU have been increasing continuously since the first cargo in April 2016 and have seen a steep rise after Trump and Juncker’s meeting in July 2018.
Since then cumulative EU imports of LNG from the U.S. have increased by 272%, while March 2019 recorded the highest volume ever of EU-U.S. trade in LNG with more than 1.4 billion cubic meters.
'In line with its LNG Strategy, the EU is actively supporting the development of new LNG capacity in Europe, and only last week a grant agreement between the Polish government and the Polskie LNG company for the extension of the LNG terminal in Swinoujscie, in north-western Poland on the Baltic Sea coast was signed,' the EC confirmed.
By Ebru Sengul
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr