The Czech Republic, Poland , Hungary and Slovakia have called on the US to make it easier for them to import US gas as the central European nations look to reduce their dependency on Russia, according to news agency Reuters.
The group is looking to diversify supplies to eliminate the danger that Russia could use its control of gas and oil flows to exert political pressure on the former Soviet satellite states.
Supplies were briefly disrupted in 2009 during a dispute between Russia and Ukraine, through which much of the Russian gas is piped, and central Europeans fear they could be under threat again due to an escalation of tensions between Russia and the West over Russia’s seizure of Crimea.
Last year, Russia’s Gazprom supplied the European Union and Turkey with a record 162 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 87 bcm went via Ukraine. Gazprom issued a thinly veiled warning on Friday that it could stop shipping gas to Ukraine over unpaid bills.
The V4 ambassadors to Washington asked House Speaker John Boehner in a letter to remove bureaucratic hurdles and make it possible to start exporting U.S. shale gas to the region, the Czech Foreign Ministry said.
“With the current shale gas revolution in the United States, American companies are seeking to export gas, including to Europe. But the existing bureaucratic hurdles for the approval of the export licenses to non-FTA (free-trade agreement) countries like the Visegrad countries are a major hurdle,” the letter said.
