Doug Burgum, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and “energy czar,” referred on Monday night, during an interview with ERT, to the tools the U.S. possesses to impose an embargo on Russian natural gas — acknowledging Greece’s key role in freeing Europe from its energy dependence on Russia.
When asked about Greece’s role in this new landscape of European energy independence from Russian gas, Burgum stated:
“Greece plays a crucial role, partly due to its leadership and policies, and partly for geographical and historical reasons.
Geographically, much of Europe and Eastern Europe ended up dependent on Russian oil and gas because of East–West pipelines. The idea now is to create a vertical corridor of prosperity and solidarity, North–South, that will allow energy to flow from Greece and move northward, enabling landlocked countries — those without Greece’s ports and maritime strength — to access affordable, high-quality liquefied natural gas via pipelines reaching them. This is the strategy, and Greece plays a vital role in it.”
Referring to the issue of natural gas pricing, Mr. Burgum emphasized that it depends largely on the method of purchase and underlined that the U.S. aims to lower prices.
“If it’s a long-term contract rather than a spot-market purchase, then the price drops significantly. Also, if the necessary infrastructure is created through what we call the ‘North–South Prosperity Corridor,’ that infrastructure will help reduce costs. We’re discussing all these elements because we understand the price differences — but reliability is also an issue,” he explained.
“We want to help lower prices and increase energy security. Another way to bring prices down is by boosting supply. The U.S. is investing over $100 billion in new export infrastructure. Since President Trump took office, our exports have increased by 25%, almost all of it to Europe. There are eight more LNG facilities under construction or approved in the U.S. We can double again the amount of natural gas we supply to Europe. We can completely replace Russian natural gas with American gas. So, by increasing supply, signing long-term contracts, and building better infrastructure, prices will fall,” he added.
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