U.S. Department of Energy Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette Visits with Key Officials in Europe

Department of Energy's (DoE) Deputy Secretary, Dan Brouillette, visited with top officials during his visit to Germany for the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Germany and International Petroleum Week (IPW) in the United Kingdom on February 14-20. The trip served as a key opportunity to communicate the Trump Administration’s commitment to an “all of the above” energy strategy and enhanced transatlantic energy security. 

Energy security is a top priority in the transatlantic relationship as a significant number of European countries remain dependent on a single supplier for gas imports. This dependence creates significant geopolitical vulnerability for both individual EU Member States and Europe as a whole. As characterized by Deputy Secretary Brouillette during his remarks at the MSC’s Energy Security Panel, “simply stated, for any nation, the path to energy security is through diversity of supply. But energy security also depends on diversity of countries providing that supply. And just as some nations dangerously depend on one source alone, a number of our European friends dangerously depend on one supplier alone for their energy needs”.

Deputy Secretary Brouillette’s visit to Europe also served as an opportunity to reaffirm DoE’s commitment to transatlantic partnership in energy and science research. DoE maintains long-standing scientific ties with the EU and Member States, leveraging scientific instrumentation, expert knowledge, and shared merit review criteria in calls for proposals, joint publications in scientific journals, and joint workshops. DoE welcomes thousands of visitors from all EU-28 Member States each year leading long-term assignments, cooperative research, and strategic partnership proposals. The warm welcome by the Fraunhofer Society and Max Planck Society, as well as the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), testifies to the breadth and success of this cooperation.

Finally, Deputy Secretary’s keynote remarks at International Petroleum Week and an executive oil & gas roundtable organized at the new U.S. Embassy in London served to recognize the emergence of the United States as a dominant global energy supplier. Today, the United States is the number-one combined oil-and-gas producer in the world. U.S. crude oil production is on track to be the highest in U.S. history this year, with more than 10 million barrels produced per day. Last year also marked the U.S. transition to a net exporter of natural gas with exports from Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG export facility on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Five other large U.S. LNG export facilities are under construction and nearing commercial operation. These projects represent more than 10 billion cubic feet per day of LNG export capacity that will be fully operational by the year 2020. In the words of Deputy Secretary Brouillette at IPW, “when it comes to exporting LNG, the United States is open for business”. Dozens of shipments have already reached European import terminals, including the Grain LNG facility visited by Deputy Secretary Brouillette during his trip. 

Deputy Secretary Brouillette trip meetings included the following senior interlocutors:

Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), UK
Mikheil Janelidze, Foreign Minister, Georgia
Marija Pejčinović Burić, Foreign Minister, Croatia
Parviz Shahbazov, Energy Minister, Azerbaijan
Pavlo Klimkin, Foreign Minister, Ukraine
Reimund Neugebauer, President Fraunhofer Society, Germany