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Between February 2022 and the end of 2025, Europe installed 10 floating re-gasification units (FSRUs) and expanded seven existing terminals, adding approximately 50 billion cubic metres of annual capacity. This unprecedented acceleration was justified by the emergency but built to last at least 20-30 years. The paradox is clear: while import capacity is growing, gas consumption in the EU fell by 20% between 2021 and 2024 (IEEFA EU Gas Flows Tracker). What emerges is not a more secure system, but a fossil fuel lock-in that will influence European energy choices until 2050.
Italy, from importer to Mediterranean hub
Italy has seized the opportunity to position itself as the southern hub of European gas. Two projects embody this strategy: the floating regasification terminal in Piombino, operational since May 2023, and the one in Ravenna, which began operating in May 2025. Both are managed by Snam, with total investments exceeding two billion euros, declared temporary but in fact integrated into the national network.
The Golar Tundra in Piombino, with a capacity of 5 billion cubic metres per year, was inaugurated amid local controversy and legal appeals (VOA: Controversial Regasification Unit Arrives in Italy). The municipal administration had contested the environmental risks to tourism and the marine ecosystem; Greenpeace joined the lawsuits, denouncing insufficient environmental impact assessments. Yet, under emergency decrees, the project was approved in record time. Initially intended as a temporary solution, it was extended without any in-depth studies on its real impacts being published.
In Ravenna, BW Singapore represents a leap in scale. With 5 billion cubic metres of capacity and pipeline connections to northern Italy and central Europe, this offshore terminal integrates with Eni’s controversial CO₂ storage project in the same area (Snam: BW Singapore in Ravenna). The integrated environmental authorisation, granted in March 2025, incorporated microtunnelling to reduce disturbances on land, but local concerns remain strong, especially about the accumulation of industrial risks in an area already under pressure.
At the same time, Italy has increased imports via pipeline from Algeria through Transmed, bringing flows from 21 billion cubic metres in 2021 to over 25 billion in 2023. This pipeline, which has been operational since the 1980s and is managed by Sonatrach and Eni, did not require new infrastructure, only commercial agreements. However, as highlighted by ReCommon for other gas supply chains, methane emissions along supply chains are a critical factor that is often underestimated in official assessments.
Who benefits from Italian gas?
The hub strategy has enabled Italy to export gas to Central and Northern Europe. Through Transitgas (to Switzerland and Germany) and TAG (to Austria, Slovenia and beyond), between 5 and 10 billion cubic metres per year were sent between 2022 and 2025. Countries such as Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic benefited from these reverse flows, especially at the peak of the 2022-2023 crisis.
For Germany, reverse flows from Italy via Transitgas provided approximately 5-7 billion cubic metres during the most critical two-year period, covering 3-5% of German demand. With the entry into operation of its own LNG terminals – such as Wilhelmshaven (operational since December 2022, with a second phase active since 2025) and Brunsbüttel (active since February 2023) – dependence on Italian flows has decreased, but the connection remains strategic for the flexibility of the system.
Although the Czech Republic mainly depends on Dutch terminals such as Eemshaven, it has indirectly received Italian volumes via Austria and Germany. This is estimated at between 0.5 and 1 billion cubic metres per year in 2023-2024, a marginal but significant share in the context of post-Russian diversification, where gas accounts for 15-20% of the national energy mix.
Hidden origins, Mozambique, the United States and the cost of addiction
The LNG arriving at European terminals is not just a technical issue. It is a global chain of extraction, exploitation and pollution that ReCommon has documented in detail.
In Mozambique, Eni’s Coral South FLNG project – operational since 2022 – is at the centre of serious allegations. The 2024 report ‘Hidden Flames’ reveals that greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated by up to 50%, with satellite data showing intense undeclared flaring (ReCommon: Hidden Flames report). A second report from February 2025 denounces Eni’s attempt to finance expansion with Coral North, perpetuating what ReCommon calls ‘the curse of gas’: forced displacement, local violence and environmental devastation in exchange for exported profits.
In the United States, now Europe’s main supplier of LNG, the situation is no better. ReCommon’s reports “The Dark Side of US LNG” (April 2023) and “US LNG: The Dark Side of the Boom & the Italian Connections” (December 2022) document how liquefaction plants along the Gulf Coast of Mexico – primarily in Texas and Louisiana – have transformed entire communities into “sacrifice zones”. Air pollution, water contamination, respiratory diseases and cancer: the health and environmental costs remain local, while the economic benefits are exported to European investors and multinationals (ReCommon: The Dark Side of US LNG).
Italy is directly involved. Eni has signed 20-year contracts with Venture Global for supplies of US LNG; Snam manages the infrastructure that allows that gas to enter the Italian and European systems; banks such as Intesa Sanpaolo have financed the expansion of Texas export terminals. A chain of interests that produces strategic returns for a few and passes on the costs to European citizens – through volatile bills – and American communities, transformed into expendable suburbs of global energy.
Fossil lock-in: the trap is closing
As ReCommon points out: “After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, liquefied natural gas became one of the cornerstones of Europe’s energy response. Within a few months, LNG was presented as the quickest solution to replace Russian gas, ensure continuity of supply and reassure markets and governments. This acceleration led to infrastructural, contractual and geopolitical choices that now risk transforming an emergency measure into a structural constraint for the European energy transition.”
This is nothing new: shortly after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Energy Monitor warned that Europe’s rush to diversify its energy sources risked creating a fossil fuel lock-in for decades. As Esther Bollendorff of Climate Action Network Europe pointed out: ‘Building new LNG infrastructure takes at least two to three years, and with a payback period of 30 to 40 years, we are clearly heading towards a lock-in and a stranded asset scenario’.
The problem is structural. Infrastructure designed to last 20-30 years, 20-year supply contracts, billion-pound investments: everything pushes towards the continued use of gas, even when demand falls and climate targets would require a rapid reduction. Methane emissions along the LNG supply chain are up to 80% higher than pipeline gas over a 20-year horizon, potentially consuming 5-8% of national carbon budgets.
Francesco Sassi, an expert in energy geoengineering, is clear: “This acceleration really risks blocking the development of alternative policies, both economically and infrastructurally.” He adds: “The signal comes from Brussels and is very explicit, but at the same time it runs parallel to that of energy diversification. In the short term, eliminate all imports of Russian resources, including LNG, and in the medium and long term, invest much more in renewables. For Brussels, this strategy has always seen the two things as complementary rather than contradictory, but it only works for Brussels politicians, who have demonstrated little knowledge of energy markets, little knowledge of the energy industry and also little knowledge of energy geopolitics.”
The contradiction is clear: while the EU proclaims the Green Deal and its climate neutrality targets for 2050, it is building an energy system that makes it increasingly difficult to achieve them. Regasification capacity continues to grow while consumption falls. The result is excess capacity that creates pressure to use gas even when it is not necessary, delaying investment in renewables and efficiency.
The new dependency, from the US to geopolitical instability
As ReCommon points out: “This is where the role of the United States becomes central. Today, Washington is the European Union’s main supplier of LNG. An analysis by IEEFA warns that, if current policies do not change, by 2030 up to 75-80% of LNG imported by the EU could come from the US, covering about 40% of total gas imports. This means replacing one dependency with another.” (IEEFA: EU risks new energy dependency as US could supply 80% of its LNG imports by 2030).
Furthermore, the Trump administration has clearly expressed its rejection of European regulations on methane emissions throughout the LNG supply chain. These regulations require suppliers to monitor, track and report methane leaks, but American LNG producers do not seem willing to make such investments. Uncontrolled methane leaks create additional challenges and demonstrate the structural incompatibility of the LNG supply chain with European climate commitments.
The narrative of US LNG as a ‘reliable’ supplier has collapsed in the face of reality. Trade tensions, the use of energy as geopolitical leverage, and threats of tariffs demonstrate how fragile the idea of a neutral energy ally is. Europe has replaced its dependence on Moscow with dependence on Washington, exposing itself to even greater volatility because it is tied to global LNG markets, where prices fluctuate with dynamics in Asia and the Middle East.
Francesco Sassi warns: “European consumers will be increasingly exposed to this international volatility due to their dependence on liquefied natural gas, which, unlike Russian natural gas, is a product exposed to global market competition.” And on the future outlook: “The way Europe is still dealing with this issue leads me to say that we are very close to another energy crisis, dictated in particular by the political inability to understand the world we live in.”
The silence of public debate
One of the most disturbing aspects is the absence of real debate. As Sassi denounces: “No one wants to bring the issue to the surface because the economic interests involved are so great and powerful that even in controlling the narrative, there is a great deal of fear about addressing certain issues.” Professionals in the sector end up in the energy industry, and critical debate disappears: “The common thread that naturally and healthily links the debate on these issues should be the country’s system or the European Union, the energy industry and the media with an attentive audience. In a European Union where the only way to talk about this type of issue is renewable energy transition, energy security and active hydrocarbons, the debate ends there and closes.”
In the midst of all this, there are uncontrollable bills, volatile prices, and a country that previously depended on Russian gas and now depends on American LNG. “We are talking about international tensions affecting energy markets and the resources we use every day, so we cannot exclude ourselves from this debate, which is very real, very lively and very serious.”
ReCommon is equally explicit: “The starting point is that LNG is not simply ‘gas arriving by ship’. It is a global industrial chain that includes extraction, processing, liquefaction, maritime transport, regasification and new connection networks. Looking only at the final stage – the regasification plant in the port – means losing sight of most of the impacts.”
Where are we going?
Four years after the crisis, Europe is faced with a strategic choice that can no longer be postponed. The LNG infrastructure built in haste is becoming permanent. Twenty-year contracts with suppliers in the United States, Qatar and Mozambique are redrawing the continent’s energy geography. There is a real risk that the urgency of energy security – legitimate in 2022 – will become a justification for delaying the transition.
As Sassi points out: “The risk is that, with the focus always on energy security, the goal of energy transition will be diluted, and that energy security issues will also cause transition policies to take a back seat.” He adds: “Politics directs money to where it believes the priority lies in meeting the needs of the population, and if the problem is that every winter we have to make sure we get to the end with enough gas in our systems to heat our homes, this is such an immediate urgency that it naturally leads to investment going there.”
The costs of this choice will not be borne by companies but by citizens: “The costs of choosing LNG, instead of being supported by the private sector, will increasingly be a burden on the public because none of the energy players can make investments of this kind with the risks that are out there.”
ReCommon concludes with an unequivocal assessment: “Continuing to invest in LNG as a pillar of European energy strategy means slowing down the transition and tying Europe’s energy future to an unstable and increasingly politicised global market. The real alternative is not to choose another gas supplier, but to structurally reduce dependence on gas itself.” (photo by David Griffiths on Unsplash)
This content was produced as part of PULSE, a European initiative supporting cross-border journalistic collaborations led by OBCT, together with n-ost and Voxeurop.
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