Economy

Instead of cutting back, imports are on the rise: The EU has increased its purchases of Russian gas by 14 percent

Europe’s efforts to reduce its dependence on Russian energy resources are progressing slowly. In June, EU member states imported 14% more liquefied natural gas from Russia than a year earlier, according to data from the energy research center Center for Energy and Clean Air Research (CREA), which was analyzed by the publication Welt am Sonntag, as reported by "Komersant Ukrainian".

It is reported that the Kremlin’s revenue from the sale of raw materials has risen to 60 million euros per day. This latest increase undermines the EU’s plan to phase out imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia by 2027. According to CREA, France purchased the majority of Russian LNG. The port of Montouar in Brittany alone received four times as much LNG in June as it did in May.

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The situation on the international gas market has recently deteriorated, as the Iranian crisis has severely restricted the flow of liquefied natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz. This has effectively sidelined Qatar, one of the world’s largest gas exporters. According to the Bruegel think tank, Russian natural gas accounted for 13.4 percent of total gas imports to the EU in the second quarter.

This means that Russia’s share has remained high since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. EU member states receive nearly all of their Russian LNG from the Yamal terminal in the Arctic. In the first half of this year, they imported 136 shipments, or 9.97 million metric tons, from there—more than ever before.

At the time of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia was the largest source of natural gas for Europe, accounting for nearly 50 percent of gas imports to the EU. Since then, the share of liquefied natural gas from the U.S. has risen sharply, and imports from Norway have also increased. According to Bruegel, Norway and the U.S. now account for about 60 percent of European natural gas imports, followed by Algeria and Russia, which are roughly equal in their respective shares.

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Instead of cutting back, imports are on the rise: The EU has increased its purchases of Russian gas by 14 percent