French imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia increase while Ukrainian supporters want to stop them.
The shipments of liquefied natural gas Russian to France more than doubled in the first half of this year, according to new analysis of trade data, at a time when Europe has tried to retreat from the energy purchases that help finance Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Europa has restricted imports of Russian oil, but natural gas is still allowed.
Although French companies are the ones that matter the mostAccording to an analysis, in the first half of this year the countries of the European Union imported 7% more Russian LNG (refrigerated and liquefied natural gas to facilitate maritime transport) than in the same period of the previous year.
Russia’s fossil fuel phase-out
Oleh Savytskyi, founder of the nonprofit Razom We Stand, which advocates for tougher sanctions against Russia’s fossil fuels, said the EU’s goal of phasing out all Russian fossil fuels by 2027 is “terribly misguided“Thus, he pointed out that the countries that they buy Russian LNG They are sabotaging the energy transition of the European continent and contributing billions of euros to Russia’s war actions.
European governments have said that completely banning imports of Russian gas would skyrocket energy and heating bills, and industrial gas users would also be harmed.
The analysis comes from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, IEEFA, a US organization nonprofit whose objective is to accelerate the global transition towards a more sustainable energy. IEEFA examined data from Kpler, a shipping tracker, and ICIS, a commodity data provider, which also provided their own analyses.
According to the institute, French companies imported almost 4.4 billion cubic meters of Russian LNG in the first half of this year, compared to more than 2,000 million cubic meters in the same period of the previous year. The next largest importers, Spain and Belgium, recorded an increase of 1% and a decrease of 16%, respectively, according to the IEEFA.
The French energy giant accounts for most of the imports
The company TotalEnergies, the French energy giant that represented most of the imports In a list of shipments between January and June to which AP journalists had access, it indicated that it was bound by contracts signed before the shipment began. Russian invasion of Ukraine. For its part, the French Ministry of Economy and Finance told AP that the attacks by the Houthi rebels on ships transiting the Suez Canal have forced the remodeling of the LNG imports: Gas from the Middle East can no longer easily reach Europe, while Russia’s route from the Arctic has not been affected.
Ministerial sources indicated that France is one of the main LNG entry points in Europe. In addition, France and Spain, with seven each country, have the largest number of LNG terminals in Europe.
At the same time that France imported more Russian LNG, it imported less from other suppliers, such as the United States, Angola, Cameroon, Egypt and Nigeria; an amount that approximates increase in Russian LNG, according to the analysis. None of the LNG exports from those other countries It was affected for the attacks carried out in the Red Sea.
Russian LNG prices are not public, but it is usually sold at a small discount because some buyers don’t want itexplained Jason Feer, global head of business intelligence at the energy consultancy ‘Poten & Partners’.
Neither French households nor industry use the leftover gas. Demand in France fell 9% in the first half of this year compared to the previous one. Meanwhile, French gas exports, via a gas pipeline, to Belgium increased by almost 10% in the first six months, according to Kpler data. It is not possible to know how much of that export was Russian LNG.
“What this indicates is that people is making money with this trade,” says Feer.
Russia’s largest LNG project is on the Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic Circle, a joint venture with TotalEnergies, which owns 20%. Under a contract signed in 2018, TotalEnergies commits to purchasing there 4 million tons of gas per year.
TotalEnergies indicated in an email that was legally obligated to fulfill its contracts and it will do so “as long as European governments consider that Russian gas is necessary for the security of supply to the European Union.”
Only if new sanctions were imposed could purchases be suspended, he said. TotalEnergies declared that its imports of Russian LNG in Europe had decreased during the period studied.
A spokesperson for the European Commission stated that gas imports Russian fell considerably between 2021 and 2023. A temporary increase in volume “does not call into question the EU’s achievements in the last two years,” said European Commission spokesman Adalbert Jahnz. “We have diversified our imports and most of the gas needed supplied by reliable partnerslike Norway and the United States”.
However, Razom We Stand’s Savytskyi called on the EU to place a full embargo on the product. TotalEnergies”should not have free rein to keep Europe hooked on Russian gas,” he said.
