The expert told how Europe observed Russian gas in 2022

Moscow, January 9 -/ Prime. Following the results of last year, European countries replaced part of the gas not received from Russia by importing a record volume of LNG – about 125 million tons, according to Sergey Kapitonov, an analyst at the Skoltech Energy Transition Project Center and ESG, commenting to RIA. Novosti.

“This year the European Union succeeded in replacing the falling volumes of Russian gas – about 80 billion cubic meters. And it was successfully replaced by liquefied gas from world markets. By the end of the year, Europe’s LNG imports will be at a historical record level – about 125 million tons ( equivalent to 170 billion cubic meters of gas – editor)”.

First of all, according to Kapitonov, this is gas from the USA, because the factories located there operate almost entirely on the European market. He said about three-quarters of LNG exports go there. In addition, the analyst added, during the year Europe bought any other LNG cargoes available on the market at one point or another and was willing to pay very high prices for the chance to find spot LNG cargoes, while Asia did not receive these volumes.

Last year, many European countries lost, in whole or in part, the largest gas supplier, Gazprom. In the spring, it cut or stopped deliveries to Bulgaraz in Bulgaria, PGNiG in Poland, Gasum in Finland and Gas Terra in the Netherlands, as well as Shell Energy Europe in Germany and Orsted in Denmark, mainly citing non-compliance with a decree issued On behalf 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, dropped significantly, since the German company Siemens, due to Canadian sanctions, was unable to return the necessary unit to Russia after repairs. Full operation of the gas mains proved impossible due to maintenance difficulties, and by fall, supplies had stopped along the way.

Pumping also stopped along the balanced Belarusian route – the Yamal gas pipeline – Europe – after the counter-sanctions imposed by Russia against the operator of the Polish section, and decreased significantly along the Ukrainian route, as Ukraine stopped receiving part of the transit. As a result, Russian gas is now being supplied via pipelines to Europe through one of the two entry points to the gas transportation system in Ukraine and through Turkey, where it comes through the Turkish Stream and Blue Stream pipelines.