In December 2025, the European Parliament voted 500 to 120 to ban Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) by the end of 2026 and all Russian pipeline gas by late 2027. The legislation includes €40 million penalties for any entity found circumventing the ban.
Russian gas exports to Europe had already declined sharply before the vote. Pipeline gas deliveries fell from 137 billion cubic meters in 2021 to just 18 billion cubic meters by 2025. Over the same period, Russia’s share of European Union gas imports dropped from 45% to 12%.
As European buyers moved to replace Russian supplies, U.S. LNG emerged as a dominant alternative. Before the war in Ukraine, the United States supplied 24% of EU LNG imports. By the fourth quarter of 2025, that share had risen to 56%, according to Eurostat. An update from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) in the first quarter of 2026 reported the U.S. share had increased further to 63%.
European energy companies signed and extended long-term U.S. LNG supply agreements in spring 2026. The deals were struck under conditions of high prices, limited alternatives, and the approach of winter heating demand. Germany, which rapidly built LNG import terminals after the 2022 energy crisis, now imports predominantly American LNG.
On February 4, 2026, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE with a business delegation to diversify oil and gas supply chains. IEEFA projects that by 2030, EU imports of U.S. LNG will reach 115 billion cubic meters per year. The institute forecasts that U.S. LNG will account for 80% of all EU LNG imports and 40% of total EU gas imports—including both pipeline and LNG—by that year.