Liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports out of Russia fell by 3% in January through May from a year earlier, amid tighter EU restrictions on transshipment and U.S. sanctions on a new LNG project that can’t find buyers yet.
Russia’s LNG shipments dipped by 3% year-over-year to 13.2 million tons in the first five months of the year, Reuters reports, citing preliminary data from LSEG.
Kurt Vandenberghe, the Commission’s director-general for climate action, commented, “Having extracted hydrocarbons and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, it [the oil and gas industry] will now contribute to storing CO2 and help mitigate climate change. By combining their industrial know-how with faster permitting processes and robust financial support – including from the ETS-resourced Innovation Fund – we can make substantial progress in advancing industrial decarbonization and modernization in Europe”.
A European official attending the G7 finance powwow in Banff, Canada, told Reuters that the U.S. Treasury team thinks market forces are already doing the heavy lifting. With Brent prices wobbling around $64—and Russia’s Urals blend clocking in at a $10 discount—Washington’s logic is that there’s no need to poke the bear when the bear’s already limping.
Hungary and Slovakia are currently getting their Russian natural gas supply via the TurkStream pipeline that runs under the Black Sea to Turkey and then on to Eastern Europe. According to one Bulgarian energy analyst from the progressive think-tank Center for the Study of Democracy, the existence of this pipeline can prolong the European Union’s reliance on Russian gas. Indeed, it has already increased Russian gas imports to Central and Southeastern Europe from some 30% back in 2021 to over 50% as of last year, Martin Vladimirov wrote in an op-ed for Reuters.
The European Union is preparing to impose up to €100 billion ($113 billion) in tariffs on US goods if trade talks fail, according to a new report by Bloomberg this morning.
The draft list of retaliatory measures will be circulated to member states as early as Wednesday, with a one-month consultation period before finalization.
The EU’s plan to fully cut off Russian gas imports by 2027 faces legal, logistical and political hurdles.
Although the bloc has slashed Russian gas from 45% of its supply in 2021 to 19% in 2024, fully severing ties is proving difficult. Long-term contracts with companies such as TotalEnergies and Naturgy, lasting into the 2030s, are a major obstacle. Brussels is weighing “force majeure” clauses to exit these deals, but legal experts caution that without sanctions, such moves could spark costly arbitration.
Russia accounted for 20 percent of gas imported by the EU via pipeline in the third quarter. Norway continued to be the EU’s top pipeline gas supplier with a share of 47 percent, followed by North Africa (16 percent). The United Kingdom was the EU’s fourth-biggest pipeline gas source accounting for 11 percent, while Azerbaijan came fifth with six percent.
The fact that the EU still buys so much gas from Russia is telling, and the story it tells should make U.S. LNG producers happy. Whatever regulations the EU adopts in the name of its planet-saving push, energy supply security will always come on top. The decision to go long-term on LNG is one key piece of evidence. More evidence comes from the regulation itself, and it suggests implementation might be challenging, to put it mildly.
A new US Department of Energy survey provides updated data on oil & natural gas production in the CaspianBasin. It shows that four regional states – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – collectively account for 3 percent of global energy production.
Europe’s biggest energy producers and traders warned the European Commission against introducing a gas price cap as a tool during times of crisis, after some officials raised the idea in recent months.