In July, Poland became the first Eastern European country to receive a shipment of U.S. LNG. Speaking in Warsaw at the time, President Donald Trump said he hoped for stronger ties between the two countries on energy.
Following a meeting with the U.S. premier, Polish President Andrzej Duda said he expected to sign a long-term transatlantic deal for LNG supplies, before adding that any such agreement would reduce Warsaw’s reliance on Russian “blackmailing”.
“Some central and east European countries especially Poland and Lithuania might prefer to import U.S. LNG and pay a higher price because they made reduction of dependence on Russian gas one of their main political priorities as they see it as a security issue,” Katja Yafimava, a London-based analyst at the Oxford Energy Institute, told CNBC via email.
Yafimava explained that while current price levels meant Russian gas is competitive with U.S. LNG for European buyers, Moscow would likely adopt a strategy to “dis-incentivize” a second wave of LNG from the other side of the Atlantic over the next decade.
Rising shipments of U.S. natural gas have been made possible by the shale revolution in the country. And the world’s largest economic and military power is now seeking to peel away business from Russian gas companies, such as state-backed energy giant Gazprom.
