Kapitonov: In 2022 Europe replaces Russian gas with record LNG imports

MOSCOW, January 9 – RIA Novosti. Following last year’s results, European countries replaced some of the gas not received from Russia by importing record amounts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) – about 125 million tonnes, Skoltech Energy Transition Project Center analyst Sergey Kapitonov and ESG told RIA Novosti in a statement.

“The European Union has quite successfully replaced the falling volumes of Russian gas – about 80 billion cubic meters – this year. It has been successfully replaced by liquefied gas from world markets. By the end of the year, Europe’s LNG imports will reach a historic record level – about 125 million tons (equivalent to 170 billion cubic meters of gas),” said the analyst.

First of all, according to Kapitonov, this is gas from the USA, because now the factories there work almost exclusively for the European market. About three-quarters of U.S. LNG exports go there, he said. The analyst also added that during the year Europe bought other LNG shipments on the market in one way or another and was prepared to pay extremely high prices for the opportunity to find spot LNG shipments, while Asia did not receive these volumes.

Last year, many European countries completely or partially lost their largest gas supplier, Gazprom. In the spring, it reduced or stopped deliveries to Bulgargaz in Bulgaria, PGNiG in Poland, Gasum in Finland, Gas Terra in the Netherlands, Shell Energy Europe in Germany and Orsted in Denmark. Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on payment in rubles or other technical reasons.

Then, at the beginning of summer, deliveries along the main route, the Nord Stream gas pipeline, were significantly reduced, as the German Siemens could not return the necessary unit to Russia after repair due to Canadian sanctions. Full operation of gas pipelines became impossible due to difficulties in maintenance, and in the autumn supply along the route stopped.

Pumping along the stabilizing Belarusian route – the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline – decreased significantly along the Ukrainian route, as Ukraine stopped receiving part of the transit, after Russia’s counter-sanctions against the operator of the Polish division also ceased. As a result, Russian pipeline gas is now supplied to Europe, where it comes from one of two entry points to Ukraine’s gas transport system and via the Turkish Stream and Blue Stream pipelines through Turkey.