ACER (the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators) published its Gas Wholesale Markets Winter 2025-2026 monitoring report on Thursday 23 April 1. The headline figures: US LNG now accounts for 30% of EU gas imports and two-thirds of EU LNG imports, a 45% year-on-year rise; the bloc exited winter at a 9-year low in storage, leaving the 73 TWh deficit Argus reported on 1 April ; refill cost an incremental EUR 10 to 15 billion above baseline. Central and eastern European prices ran up to EUR 20/MWh above TTF in cold spells, with Belgium-Germany-Czech corridors carrying elevated cross-border flows.
The 30% figure marks the structural endpoint of the post-2022 supply substitution. Reuters and AP wire data show Qatari and Russian volumes have not been replaced by like-for-like Atlantic capacity; they have been replaced by Cheniere, Venture Global and Sempra export terminals on the US Gulf running closer to nameplate than at any point since 2022. That has worked through winter and held the TTF benchmark together. The EUR 10 to 15 billion refill cost ACER reports is incremental over baseline, a tighter scope than Bruegel's full estimate of EUR 26 to 44 billion across three scenarios.
The scenario worth watching is the 26 bcm global shortfall ACER models if Qatari production stays offline through December 2026, with EU spot LNG demand rising to 56 bcm under that case. That is more severe than the IEA's older mid-year base case and aligns with the Q2 GMR pivot to multi-year framing. Procurement teams still treating US LNG as marginal supply are working from 2024's assumptions; the 45% year-on-year rise puts the Gulf coast at the centre of the European balance, with all the basis-risk that carries when the same terminals serve Asian premium buyers. The AccelerateEU package's lack of a storage injection mechanism sits awkwardly against this dependency.
