A gas deal between the US and the EU is important, but it will not make up for Russia's gas shortage, former US Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said on CNBC.

The US has said it will work with international partners to ship at least 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe this year. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2021 the European Union imported 155 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia.

However, the gas deal is very important and private businesses and governments will need to fill the gap if Europe is to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, Brouillette said.

He added that Germany should also build LNG processing facilities to support the phase-out of Russian energy in the short term.

In the long term, Europe will have to use different energy sources, Brouillette said. “If you look at the history of energy, you will see that it has always been in transition, but it has always been a transition from less to more,” he said. This contrasts with the replacement of one form of energy production, such as burning fossil fuels, with another form of energy, such as wind or solar power.