Eni unit set to join the European retail gas LNG exodus

Questions are being asked about the continent’s gas suppliers in the wake of a price crunch. But the trend is less engagement with the global LNG market, not more

What do Germany’s Uniper and RWE, France’s Engie, Spain’s Naturgy and Italy’s Eni all have in common? Perhaps that is a misleading question: it is more what until a few years ago they had in common, but no longer do. And the answer is that they were major suppliers of gas into western Europe’s domestic gas markets and also had thriving international LNG trading arms. But, in recent years, they have either broken that link entirely—or, in the case of Eni, will do once its downstream gas, power and renewables business is spun off—or reduced their LNG exposure. That means that many of the largest supply books in European gas have become more detached from global LNG markets than they were previ