Intensifying competition between the United States and Russia is driving record-breaking LNG imports into Europe’s most liquid natural gas trading hubs, with the rivals accounting for more than half of December volumes shipped to these areas, analysis of S&P Global Platts Analytics data shows. Amid geopolitical tensions over Russian pipeline supply in Europe, the US now faces additional economic pressure from growing LNG production originating in Russia, and will have to contend with a pincer move from these two sources of natural gas if it is to consolidate its gains of market share in European LNG, and for so-called “freedom gas” to live up to its name and liberate Europe from Russian gas dependency. Aggregated monthly imports of LNG into France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK hit 10 Bcm of natural gas […]