Europe continues to indirectly finance Russia's war on Ukraine, feeding Moscow's coffers. Despite having vetoed the purchase of Russian oil, Europeans continue to massively buy energy from Russia, particularly in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which arrives by ship, according to research by the IEEFA (Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis) an independent organization based in Houston, which was released yesterday.
“Europe is turning a blind eye to the Russian gas flowing through its terminals,” charge the authors of the study. EU spending on Russian gas and LNG in 2022 doubled from the previous year and payments for liquefaction tripled to €16.1 billion. This year the trend has not changed either. If you look at the LNG volumes, they barely remain at about 14,000 million cubic meters. Despite the multiple trade sanctions due to the war, if we add Russian gas and LNG, the Twenty-Seven have paid 12.5 billion euros to Russia between January and September.
“Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU has attempted to wean itself from Russian gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG). But the figures show an increase in Russian imports and some European countries even allow their terminals to transship and/or re-export Russian LNG,” the study reads. The terminals that have received the largest amount of LNG from the Russian Yamal terminal in 2023 are Zeebrugge (Belgium), followed by Montoir-de-Bretagne (France), and Bilbao.
Spain is the main importer of Russian LNG among EU countries, with 5.21 billion cubic meters (5.210 bcm) imported from January to September 2023, followed by France (3.19 bcm) and Belgium (3.14 bcm) . Spain and Belgium increased their purchases by 50% compared to the same period in 2022. This contrasts with the Netherlands, which has stopped offering Russian LNG transshipment services, and the United Kingdom, which has completely banned Russian imports of this fuel. . If you look at the data between January and October provided by Enagás, Russia is the second supplier of LNG and the third of Spain's total gas, with a share of 18% of imports.
“We must remember that, on the one hand, many European companies have long-term contracts for gas from Russia and those contracts continue to be fulfilled, of course. And, on the other hand, Spain has Russian operators registered in the system, from whom consumers can buy. Another relevant aspect is that Spain has one of the largest regasification plants in the EU – it concentrates a third of the regasification capacity of all of Europe –, making it a center for the arrival and re-export of LNG to Europe,” he explains. the director of the Energy Transition Chair of the UB, Mariano Marzo.
And, in fact, the Russian liquefied gas that arrives in Spain is also sold to other countries. Spain re-exported 1.05 billion cubic meters of LNG between January and September 2023, during which its re-exports to Italy almost doubled year on year.
The situation may be uncomfortable in Brussels. “The RePowerEU plan aims to tackle the climate crisis and reduce the EU's dependence on Russian fossils, which are used as an economic and political weapon and cost European taxpayers almost 100 billion a year. The current situation will most likely affect future decisions in the EU,” says Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, chief analyst at IEEFA Europe.
