Vienna, Madrid, Rome The last Russian gas came to Germany at the end of August 2022. Since then, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium in particular have taken over the supply. But even as other countries are reducing their dependency on Russia, a year after the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Russian gas continues to arrive in the European Union – via the Transgas pipeline, the Turkstream pipeline and as liquefied natural gas (LNG) by sea .
Unlike oil, gas is not subject to EU sanctions. And so in November last year, 13 percent of the total gas supply within the EU came from Russia. That is far less than in November 2021, when it was still 40 percent. Nevertheless, Russia was still the EU’s most important gas supplier between January and November last year with almost 25 percent – on a par with Norway – as cumulative EU data shows. In countries like Austria, the proportion is even higher.
In response to European sanctions, the Kremlin has halted gas supplies to some countries like Germany. Still other countries parted with deliveries from Russia of their own accord. “Moscow has failed to blackmail EU member states by holding back gas,” said Szymon Kardas of the European Council on Foreign Relations. For him, Germany’s “complete independence” from imported Russian gas is one of the greatest successes of the past year. But Europe as a whole is far from there.
In 2022, the import volumes of Russian liquefied gas even increased by twelve percent compared to the previous year. This made Russia the second most important LNG supplier in Europe after the USA. Whether demands from industry, ongoing construction projects or long-term supply contracts: there are many reasons why some EU countries have not yet given up Russian gas, as three examples show.
Austria’s industry is struggling with higher gas prices
There are two gas supply contracts between the partially state-owned Russian energy group Gazprom and the Austrian energy and petrochemical company OMV: one for Germany, which runs until 2030, and one for Austria, which runs until 2040 However, there has been no gas for some time.
Austria still receives gas under the OMV contract, but not always reliably in the quantities that Gazprom would have to supply under the contract. The delivery volume in autumn was only 30 to 70 percent of the agreed volume. However, recently Gazprom once again met 100 percent of its delivery commitments. Unlike oil, Russia cannot easily divert its gas to countries like China – there are no pipelines.
In December 2022, 70 percent of imported natural gas came from Russia.
(Photo: dpa)
Austria is struggling to make itself less dependent on Russian gas. For decades, industry was used to being supplied with cheap energy from Russia.
>> Read here: How Europe redirects its gas flows – and becomes independent of Russia
Before Christmas, Chancellor Karl Nehammer jubilantly announced that Austria had succeeded in reducing the share of Russian gas to 20 percent. But that was a premature statement: In fact, it later turned out that around 70 percent of the imported natural gas came from Russia in December 2022.
Austria has not succeeded in reducing its dependency on Russia in the long term; in the meantime, Gazprom had simply delivered less. In addition, Austria’s share is likely to decrease temporarily if other countries, such as Italy, obtain more gas via Austria – and the Russian gas thus reaches other countries via the pipeline connection with Austria.
The long-term gas contract between OMV and Gazprom is a political problem, but secretly Austria should be fine with the fact that it guarantees a certain level of energy security.
Italy doesn’t want to be independent from Russian gas until 2024
Before the war began, Russia accounted for around 40 percent of Italy’s gas imports. Last year, the proportion fell by more than half to 19.3 percent. Although that is 15 billion cubic meters less than in the previous year, Russian natural gas is still coming to Italy – above all via the pipeline connection with Austria.
Rome relies on new supply contracts with countries such as Algeria, Libya and Azerbaijan. The Italian state gas supplier Eni has been active in Algeria since the 1980s. This year, however, Italy will continue to need Russian gas for its energy supply.
>> Read here: Germany can benefit from gas from Algeria
By the winter of 2024/2025, the country wants to completely replace imports from Russia. Two more LNG terminals are currently being built for this purpose, because the natural gas required will mainly come to southern Europe in liquefied form. So far, Italy already has three large regasification plants. In addition, the national natural gas deposits on the Adriatic coast are being tapped more and more.
Spain purchases more Russian gas than before the war
The largest regasification plants in the EU are in Spain. In addition, the country has a direct pipeline to the gas producer Algeria. This makes Spain relatively independent of Russian gas. Nonetheless, gas imports from Russia to Spain increased by 45 percent last year.
Russian gas accounted for 12 percent of all Spanish gas imports last year. Russia was the fourth largest supplier behind the USA, Algeria and Nigeria. In the three years before the Ukraine war, Russia’s share of Spain’s gas imports was between 8.5 and 10.5 percent.
The North African country has advanced to become an important energy supplier for Europe.
(Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images)
“Spain’s imports of Russian gas are only marginal,” said Spain’s Economy Minister Nadia Calviño in mid-January at the Handelsblatt energy conference. However, they do not fit in with the EU’s efforts to isolate Russia economically and politically.
According to the Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition, the supply contracts, some of which are long-term, are not with Gazprom but with private companies. Last summer, Minister Teresa Ribera recommended that Spanish energy traders “minimise the origin of Russian gas and diversify all the contracts they previously had”. But she can’t dictate that to them.
>> Read here: Energy Crisis in Europe: How Likely is a Gas Emergency?
The ministry also explains the rising imports from Russia with the fact that Spain had to import more gas last year (plus seven percent) in order to supply other EU countries with gas that wanted to fill their storage facilities before winter. Spain also needed more gas itself to produce electricity and exported significantly more electricity to France, where numerous nuclear power plants had failed. Spanish electricity exports to Portugal also increased because the hydroelectric power plants there failed due to the dry summer.
More: Europe’s imports make LNG scarce and expensive for emerging markets