By Michael Elkins
Shell (NYSE:SHEL) (LON:RDSa) Chief Executive Wael Sawan attended CERAWeek, the world's premier energy conference, on Thursday where he commented that Europe should stop relying on luck for its energy security and build new natural gas import infrastructure to replace Russian supplies.
"We need to move away from depending on luck as a strategy for our energy needs in Europe," said Sawan, who was appointed CEO in January. "I'm concerned we haven't yet structurally resolved that," he said.
Shell is the world's top trader of liquefied natural gas, a fuel that helped Europe replace a huge drop in Russian pipeline gas in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Europe was able to fill its gas inventories at a huge cost. Stocks remain about 60% full, but a few weeks of cold could deplete them, he said.
"Europe will need to be able to get a lot more LNG if it wants to have the security of supply that it wants," Sawan said. "We need more (gas) storage, we need more renewables."
He said the German government made "big strides" by constructing four LNG import terminals in over the past year, two of which are already in operation.
"These are critical, critical, import infrastructure for Europe to be able to have the confidence to diversify the supply system," Sawan said.
Shares of SHEL are down 0.34% in afternoon trading on Thursday.