LONDON, Sept 10 — ExxonMobil expects the European Union to sign multi-decade US gas contracts under its pledge to buy billions of dollars of American energy, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

The EU in July pledged to buy US$750 billion of US energy by 2028 as part of a sweeping trade pact with Washington.

Exxon and the EU did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Peter Clarke, senior vice president of Exxon’s liquefied natural gas business, told the FT that Europe’s expanding LNG infrastructure made it “logical” to commit to longer-term supply, noting 

Exxon sells about 80 per cent of its LNG under such contracts.

Europe is now “the most important market” for US LNG exports, and the next step will be for the continent “to figure out how it supports long-term contracting,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

The US supplied 50 per cent of the EU’s liquefied natural gas imports in 2024, along with 17 per cent of oil and 35 per cent of coal, according to Eurostat. Any expansion in energy trade is likely to center on LNG, with the US the world’s top exporter of the fuel.

“We have seen in the data quite a big increase in LNG imports to Europe, year on year, it’s up about 20 per cent,” Clarke told FT, adding that 55 per cent of the imports were from the United States.  — Reuters