At low oil prices, customer choice rather than strategic Russian decision-making would allow Russia to retain over 30% of the roughly 490bn m³/yr European market and threaten US LNG export volumes.

The United States is currently a net importer of natural gas, and gross imports represented nearly 10% of total supply in 2015, based on data through November. The United States imported 7.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas, mostly from Canada by pipeline, and exported 4.8 Bcf/d, mostly to Mexico by pipeline. For years, Alaska has exported LNG, mostly to Pacific Rim countries, but these volumes have been small. In addition to the Sabine Pass terminal that was the source of last week's LNG shipment, four other LNG export terminals are currently under construction.

With more or less fanfare, several countries in the region have at one time or another announced their intention to become a gas hub. Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania have generally been the most vocal, though neither ever provided the specifics of what their respective hub proposal looks like.

LNG cannot reach every corner of Europe: there may be a lot of under-used capacity in import terminals in the Iberian peninsula but these are not useful for security of supply in mainland Europe except where they have reloading facilities. There is very little transport capacity overland into France.

Total imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by Japan, South Korea, and China, the three largest global LNG importers, all located in North Asia, declined by an average of 1.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) (5%) in 2015.

From February 15, BG Group is part of Royal Dutch Shell. This combination brings together two world-class portfolios creating a more competitive company. We have acquired productive oil and gas projects across countries including Brazil and Australia and will be able to shape a simpler, leaner company. Together we will focus on our core expertise in deep water and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Chinese imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) declined by 1.1% year-on-year in 2015 for the first time since China began importing LNG in 2006.

Such a strategy may be economically rational for Gazprom: already-low prices in the European gas market mean it could relatively easily push prices to a level at which it would be unprofitable to ship LNG from the US — and in doing so defend its market share in a region which accounts for the bulk of its profits.

Medvedev also downplayed an expected influx of liquefied natural gas to Europe from the United States, saying Gazprom's gas would be cheaper.

The stress test had definitely shown that “we still need additional infrastructure, but not everywhere – we really need to target investment where it's really needed and have the projects of common interest (“PCI's”) and how Europe promotes investments should really be targeted to regions where we do need investments.”