In Moscow, they created a situation where the European Union does not really need Russian gas, although before the great war with Ukraine, the EU was the main sales market for the Russian Federation.
So far, Europe has only partially given up on Russian gas, but even this has seriously hit the Kremlin’s energy ambitions. In 9 months of 2022, gas exports from the Russian Federation fell by 41.1%, if compared with the same period of 2021, and amounted to only 89.3 billion cubic meters. m against the backdrop of a growing reduction in supplies to European buyers. This was reported by the publication Natural Gas World.
As global LNG demand, especially in China, declines, Europe has replaced global supplies with new additions from as far away as Norway. Thus, the EU protected itself from problems with the supply of natural gas through the Nord Stream pipelines.
At the same time, European industry, which accounts for 30% of gas consumption, was seriously worried about structurally higher gas prices, but, as the publication writes, the data show that the potential economic impact is much smaller than expected.
Thus, the sectors with the highest natural gas consumption—metals, chemicals, paper, coke, fertilizers, and petroleum/mineral processing—consume a quarter of the region’s natural gas consumption, but only 3% of Europe’s total gross value added and less than 1% of all European workforce.
That is, the journalists write, Moscow has created a situation where the European Union does not really need Russian gas. And this despite the fact that the EU was the main sales market of the Russian Federation.
It was previously noted that the Russian Federation spends much less of its income from energy resources on war. The main ‘sponsors’ of the Russian economy are the EU, in particular Germany and China. They bought the most energy resources from the aggressor state during the last six months of the war in Ukraine.
It will be recalled that the Russian gas monopolist Gazprom predicted an increase in gas prices in Europe this winter by more than one and a half times. The fact is that the company noted an increase in the cost of blue fuel on spot exchanges to $2,500 per thousand cubic meters. According to the monopolist’s calculations, if the trend continues, prices will exceed the $4,000 mark in winter. Meanwhile, the European Union is preparing for a possible reduction in gas consumption.
