“Beyond Realistic”: Why Europe’s Pledge To Buy $750BN In US Energy Is Mathematically Impossible

As part of the U.S.-EU trade deal agreed over the weekend, the EU committed to purchasing a mindblowing $750 billion worth of US energy products over three years ($250 per year) including LNG, oil, and nuclear fuel (again this is very big picture: neither side has detailed what was included in the energy deal – or whether it covered items such as energy services or parts for power grids and plants).

There is just one problem: this number is laughably unrealistic because it would require the redirection of most US energy exports towards Europe and the EU has little control over the energy its companies import. 

Indeed, as Rabobank explains, unless energy prices increase materially, that figure remains beyond realistic expectations. The EU imported roughly €65 billion worth of energy products from the U.S. in 2024, including €20 billion (35 million tons) of U.S. LNG and €44 billion of oil and oil products. To reach the required $250 billion per year, the EU would need to import roughly 67% of its energy needs from the US, based on 2024 Eurostat data.

Even if the EU were to purchase all of its LNG from the U.S., the total would rise to only €40–50 billion, based on 2024 prices. This would require countries like Russia, Algeria, Qatar, Nigeria, and even Norway to completely relinquish their market share in the EU, while the U.S. government would need to mandate its LNG exporters to prioritize Europe.

The shift in flows for crude oil and refined products would be even more substantial, as the EU currently imports only around 17% of its needs from the U.S. Existing suppliers in the Middle East and India are unlikely to surrender market share without significant economic incentives, while U.S. refining and export capacity is already stretched. Capacity, cost, and competition will continue to shape energy flows, regardless of political intent.

Reuters adds that “there is strong competition for U.S. energy exports as other countries need the supplies – and have themselves pledged to buy more in trade deals. Japan agreed to a “major expansion of U.S. energy exports” in its U.S. trade deal last week, the White House said in a statement. South Korea has also indicated interest in investing and purchasing fuel from an Alaskan LNG project as it seeks a trade deal.”

The flipside is just as laughable: total U.S. energy exports to all buyers worldwide in 2024 amounted to $318 billion. Of that, the EU imported a combined $76 billion of U.S. petroleum, LNG and solid fuels such as coal in 2024, according to Reuters’ calculations based on Eurostat data.

More than tripling those imports was unrealistic, analysts said.

Arturo Regalado, senior LNG analyst at Kpler, said the scope of the energy trade envisioned in the deal “exceeds market realities.”

“U.S. oil flows would need to fully redirect towards the EU to reach the target, or the value of LNG imports from the US would need to increase sixfold,” Regalado said.

Competition for U.S. energy could drive up benchmark US oil and gas prices and encourage U.S. producers to favour exports over domestic supply. That could make fuel and power costs more expensive, which would be a political and economic headache for U.S. and EU leaders. 

Meanwhile, the EU estimates its member countries’ plans to expand nuclear energy would require hundreds of billions of euros in investments by 2050. Its nuclear reactor-related imports, however, totalled just 53.3 billion euros in 2024, trade data shows.

The energy pledge reflected the EU’s analysis of how much U.S. energy supply it could accommodate, a senior EU official told Reuters, but that would depend on investments in U.S. oil and LNG infrastructure, European import infrastructure, and shipping capacity.

“These figures, again, are not taken out of thin air. So yes, they require investments,” said the senior official, who declined to be named. “Yes, it will vary according to the energy sources. But these are figures which are reachable.”

There was no public commitment to the delivery, the official added, because the EU would not buy the energy – its companies would. Private companies import most of Europe’s oil, while a mix of private and state-run companies import gas. The European Commission can aggregate demand for LNG to negotiate better terms, but cannot force companies to buy fuel. That is a commercial decision.

“It’s just unrealistic,” ICIS analysts Andreas Schröder and Ajay Parmar said in written comments to Reuters. “Either Europe pays a super high non-market reflective price for U.S. LNG or it takes way too much LNG volumes, more than it can cope with.”

The United States is already the EU’s top supplier of LNG and oil – thanks to the Biden-inspired war in Ukraine and the CIA blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia – shipping 44% of EU LNG needs and 15.4% of its oil in 2024, according to EU data. Raising imports to the target would require a U.S. LNG expansion way beyond what is planned through 2030, said Jacob Mandel, research lead at Aurora Energy Research.

“You can add on capacity,” Mandel said. “But if you’re talking about the scale that would be necessary to meet these targets, the $250 billion, then it’s not really feasible.” Europe could buy $50 billion more of U.S. LNG annually as supply increases, he said.

Amusingly, higher EU fuel purchases would, however, run counter to forecasts for EU demand to decline as it shifts to clean energy, analysts said. 

“There is no major need for the EU to import more oil from the U.S., in fact, its oil demand peaked a number of years ago,” Schröder and Parmar said.

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According to Rabobank, the most plausible outcome of the trade deal’s energy provisions is increased European participation in U.S. LNG projects (which would also have been achieved without the deal). Unlike crude and refined products, LNG offers scalable, long-term opportunities through joint investments in liquefaction capacity and infrastructure.

European firms are likely to commit capital to U.S. terminals to secure future supply and diversify away from Russian gas. However, this will not materially alter market balances over the next five years and by then Trump will be long gone.