Russia overtakes the US in gas supplies to Europe

In May 2024, gas imports to Europe from Russia exceeded supplies from the United States for the first time in almost two years, despite the region's efforts to cut off Russian gas after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Although this development was caused by one-time factors, the situation underscores the difficulty of further reducing Europe's dependence on gas from Russia, as some Eastern European countries still rely on Russian imports, the Financial Times writes.

After the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia reduced pipeline gas supplies to Europe, and the region increased LNG imports, with the United States emerging as the main supplier, overtaking Russia in September 2022.

Since 2023, the US has accounted for about a fifth of gas supplies to the European region.

However, according to the ICIS consulting company, in May-2024, gas and LNG supplies via the Russian pipeline accounted for 15% of total supplies to the EU, the UK, Switzerland, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia. LNG supplies from the United States accounted for 14% of supplies to the region, the lowest figure since August 2022.

May supplies were affected by one-off factors, including an outage at a major US LNG export facility, while Russia sent more gas through Turkey ahead of scheduled maintenance of pipelines through the country in June.

The European Commission supports the development of an investment plan to expand pipeline capacity in the Southern Gas Corridor between the EU and Azerbaijan.

A senior EU official said that supplies through this route are currently insufficient to replace the 14 billion cubic meters of Russian gas that passes through Ukraine to the EU annually, the FT reports.

The transit agreement between Ukraine and Russia expires at the end of 2024, jeopardizing supplies via this route.

Author - Ihor Lontkivskyi 17.06.24