Europe’s LNG rethink

Europe’s focus has shifted from pipeline dependence to price discipline, with the newfound flexibility and greater security coming at a higher cost, panellists said at LNG2026

Europe’s energy crisis may no longer dominate headlines, but its structural consequences are still unfolding, panellists said at LNG2026 in Doha. What began in 2022 as a scramble to replace lost pipeline gas has evolved into a fundamental rethink of how the continent secures its energy supply—and what price it is willing to pay for security, the panellists highlighted at a session called ‘Exploring Europe’s Gas Future’. LNG is now front and centre of that thinking, according to a range of experts that included Dr. Egbert Laege, CEO at SEFE, Huibert Vigeveno, group CEO at MET, and Richard Holtum, CEO at Trafigura. The distinction between pipeline gas and LNG has rarely been more consequential