According to media reports and Financial Times’s article published on November 29, 2022, Europe is importing a record amount of seaborne Russian gas, highlighting how the region has not completely shaken off its dependence on the country for the crucial fuel even as flows through pipelines have all but stopped, Financial Times reported.
Imports of Russian liquefied natural gas, which is typically transported on big tankers, rose more than 40 percent between January and October this year, compared with the same period in 2021, highlighting the difficulty for Europe in weaning itself off gas from Moscow despite Brussels' attempts to shift away from Russian sources.
Russian LNG made up 16 percent of European seaborne imports during the period. While the total volume of 17.8 billion cubic metres represented a fraction of the 62.1 bcm pipeline gas flows during this time, it nevertheless leaves Europe exposed to Vladimir Putin's weaponisation of energy.
"One day, Putin could wake up and say, 'we'll stop sending LNG to Europe', forcing the region to buy from an even more expensive spot market,” said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a global research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
Russia could also divert the cargoes to LNG-starved countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan at cheap prices to "achieve political gains" and "put pressure on Europeans", she added. "It's very important not to forget that a lot of countries are suffering because they cannot afford LNG."
There are no sanctions on Russian gas, owing to its importance to some European nations' energy security. The Kremlin has taken advantage by gradually reducing the flow through pipelines after the invasion of Ukraine, boosting prices and fuelling a cost of living crisis across the continent.
Gas flows through the Yamal pipeline, which runs through Poland, have been halted since May, and Russia cut flows through the Nord Stream 1 line to Germany in the summer. The pipeline later ruptured, in what some European countries alleged was a deliberate act of sabotage.
Russia has also recently threatened to restrict supplies to western Europe through the only pipeline still connecting the region through Ukraine. Pipeline gas from Russia is nearly 80 percent down compared with the same period last year, according to data from think-tank Bruegel.
In order to fill the gap, Europe, which last year imported 155 bcm of Russian natural gas, including LNG, has turned to the international LNG market. It imported a record 111 bcm worth of LNG globally between January and October, data from Refinitiv showed, an increase of nearly 70 percent year on year.
Imports from Russia during the period amounted to 17.8 bcm, rising 42 percent compared with the same period in 2021, with France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands taking up almost all the volumes.
Most Russian LNG comes from the Yamal LNG joint venture, which is majority owned by the Russian company Novatek, with other stakes held by France's Total, China's CNPC and a Chinese state fund. Slightly less than 10 percent of Novatek shares are owned by Russia's state-owned Gazprom.
In another sign of Europe's ties with Russia, a large ship carrying LNG from the Portovaya facility near Russia's southern border with Finland arrived in Greece last month, according to satellite data analytics company QuantCube. This would mark the first shipment by the Portovaya project, which began operating earlier this year.
Since 2017, the country has been among the top three sources for Europe, accounting for about 20 percent of its total imports in the past three years. Russia has been the second-largest source this year, according to Refinitiv, but its share has dipped to 16 percent despite the record imports as Europe has taken in more US LNG, which accounted for 42 percent. Qatar was the third-largest LNG supplier to Europe, accounting for 13.7 percent.
