I remember seeing a map of the Ukraine and all the piplines going through there frome Russia a cople of weeks back.
The European community has dictated that their electricity producers must lower their CO2 output by law. To do this they must lower the amount of coal they burn and increase natural gas and other carbon neutral fuels such as wood pellets. In addition they will build more windmills, solar, wave power, etc. This will increase the demand for natural gas in Europe in the next several decades as the older coal fired plants are fazed out. This is also why Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are so interested in controlling Syria. Syria is the route for Persian gulf natural gas to Europe.
As a side note there are several large wood pellet plants that are proposed to be built on the eastern coast of the US just to ship to Europe. I know of one in Maine and two in NC. These pellet plants are being built to supply European plants that currently burn coal.