On January 16, 2026, Japanese Mitsubishi announced that it would acquire shale gas assets in Texas and Louisiana from Aethon Energy Management for $7.53 billion.
After the deal’s completion, Mitsubishi will acquire a significant natural gas production business near the US Gulf Coast and the energy export terminals being built there.
The company’s CEO Katsuya Nakanishi stated that the assets being acquired include some of the largest gas reserves in the southern US and are characterized by “high productivity and competitiveness.”
The largest deal in the history of the Japanese corporation is a tool for strengthening the Japanese company’s supply chain, but its location near the Gulf of Mexico and LNG export terminals immediately indicates the integration of the Japanese company into American gas export infrastructure.
Starting from 2022, American LNG has systematically replaced Russian volumes that dropped out of European and Asian markets due to sanctions, destruction of pipeline logistics, and loss of political trust.
In 2021, Russia supplied 40–45% of gas imports to Europe, and in 2025, this figure is 16–19%. In 2021, the US supplied less than 10% (mostly LNG), and now this figure is 17% overall (45–48% of LNG imports).
By 2026, the United States is reaching record production levels, and the expansion of Gulf Coast terminals allows control over more than a fifth of global LNG flows, displacing Russian suppliers.
In such a configuration, Russia faces a cumulative effect of displacement, where the loss of pipeline routes is complemented by blocking access to LNG markets controlled by American infrastructure and contracts.
Each new investment by allies in US shale assets reduces the space for the return of Russian gas, as markets are fixed by long-term agreements and integration into alternative logistics chains.
At the same time, control over production in the US allows Tokyo to reduce dependence on unstable regions and finally exit the Russian gas orbit, which previously remained one of the balancing options, as confirmed by Japan’s participation in the Arctic LNG-2 project.
For the US, the arrival of Japanese capital in the shale sector serves another function—it consolidates long-term demand for American gas, creating financial stability for the industry, which actively supported Trump during the election campaign.
Thus, the co-founder of Continental Resources provided a $200,000 donation to Trump’s PAC, and George Bishop of GeoSouthern Energy provided a $500,000 donation, as well as representatives of ExxonMobil and Chevron companies.
As a result, a closed loop of interdependence is formed, in which energy companies receive a predictable regulatory regime and expansion of external opportunities, and the administration—financial and organizational support from the sector that directly benefits from adjustments to foreign economic and climate policy.
A key aspect becomes the transformation of energy projects into a political asset: investments by Japanese companies in Haynesville and connection to Gulf Coast terminals provide control over export routes, volumes, and prices, while limiting opportunities for Russian LNG.
Similar logic manifests in the Balkans: individuals from Trump’s circle are negotiating the Southern Gas Interconnection in Bosnia and Herzegovina, worth about €200 million.
The little-known AAFS Infrastructure and Energy, created a few months ago, is claiming participation in connecting the country to the LNG terminal in Croatia to reduce dependence on Russian gas.
The project is supported by the US, but the close ties of AAFS representatives with Trump and the company’s lack of experience demonstrate how energy infrastructure becomes a channel for private access to state decisions and political influence on regional markets.
The Balkan case shows that control over gas infrastructure in the US means control over supply rules, tariffs, and local elites who make decisions under external guarantees, transforming infrastructure into a mechanism of geo-economic pressure.
This example illustrates the principle by which LNG and pipeline projects simultaneously perform commercial and strategic functions, where access to US resources consolidates allies’ preferences, creates market barriers for competitors, and complicates the return of Russian gas to key markets.
The project itself has a simple logic: connect the Federation of BiH to the Croatian gas network and the LNG terminal on Krk Island to remove dependence on Russian gas entering the country through Serbia, and open an alternative route.
For the US and EU, the problem here is not in the idea of the interconnector itself, but in the reputational cost of the implementation mechanism.
If a key Balkan energy project is associated with Trump’s people and opaque intermediaries, Moscow gets a strong narrative of soft power and propaganda about replacing one energy dependence with another.
This dependence of Europe on the US and integration of Trump’s highest circle causes the EU to search for new alternatives—Brussels is trying to expand the circle of suppliers in the segment that determines the marginal price in winter, when RES generation falls and storage is depleted.
In parallel, the EU formalizes a longer horizon for abandoning Russian gas—a decision to gradually stop Russian LNG by the end of 2026 and pipeline gas by September 30, 2027 (with a possible shift in deadline), meaning the need for “replacement” becomes planned, not situational.
However, although gas has always been an infrastructure of influence, the lever is increasingly concentrated in US export nodes, rather than in pipelines formed in Russia’s economic dependence.
While Europe maintains a balance on American LNG as a marginal resource, any shocks in the US will transfer to European prices and decisions on reserves, subsidies, and industrial restrictions.
Any plans by Brussels to add Qatar and Canada to the list of suppliers will have a tangible effect at a slower pace than it appears in political statements, so the EU will receive additional gas volumes in the short term, but will not change the rules of the game in the long term, especially during peak weeks.
The result will be a partial reduction in deficit risk, but preservation of dependence on the American marginal resource as a key stabilizer.
The US will simultaneously have motivation to narrow this corridor with sanctions and political pressure to prevent an alternative axis of energy flows and additional funding for Tehran.
This will push the market toward greater politicization of contracts, higher premiums for flexibility, and less tolerance for gray schemes in border jurisdictions.
Hence the practical forecast for the EU: either it builds up tools for controlling the margin—joint procurements, standardization of long contracts, reservation of capacities, increasing transparency of infrastructure projects, and reducing peak demand through networks and electrification.
If it does not, every wave of tension on the global LNG market will again return Europe to the position of a dependent importer.
The Mitsubishi deal only underscores the direction of movement, according to which Japanese and US capital will consolidate control where nodes are concentrated, and Europe will pay a premium for access that does not belong to it institutionally.
