The Biden administration wants to send more natural gas to Europe to help it break its dependence on Russian energy. But that lofty ambition will largely be symbolic, at least in the short run, because the United States doesn’t have enough capacity to export more gas and Europe doesn’t have the capacity to import significantly more.
In recent months, US exporters, with President Joe Biden’s encouragement, have already maximized the output of terminals that turn natural gas into a liquid easily shipped on large tankers. And they have diverted shipments originally bound for Asia to Europe.