Not only Total: Shell also continues to sell Russian LNG
The European Union has drastically reduced piped gas imports from Russia, but continues to purchase significant quantities of LNG. The fuel is marketed by Total and Shell. All the details
In 2022, the European Union imported 62 billion cubic meters of natural gas via pipeline from Russia, 60 percent less than the average of the previous five years. This is a remarkable figure, considering that before the invasion of Ukraine Russia was the main supplier of gas to the Old Continent, for a total of 155 billion cubic meters in 2021 (about 45 percent of EU imports) .
For 2023, the International Energy Agency forecasts a further reduction in Russian fuel flows via pipeline, which will drop to 25 billion cubic metres.
THE EUROPEAN UNION BUYS LNG FROM RUSSIA
If supplies via pipeline have drastically decreased, the same cannot be said for those of liquefied gas (LNG) transported by ships. Since it has not been embargoed, the European Union continues to import it in large quantities from Russia: between January and September 2022 it bought 16.5 billion cubic meters, compared to 11.3 billion in 2021.
According to data from the European Council, from January to November 2022, Russia – between pipelines and (mostly) LNG – accounted for 24.6 percent of the European Union's total gas imports. But the energy gap from Moscow was profound: in the same period of time, Norway represented 24.9 percent of total imports, Algeria 11.6 percent and LNG (mainly US and Qatari) the 25.7 percent.
According to Refinitiv, Russia sent around 17 million tonnes of LNG to Europe in 2022, 20 percent more than in 2021.
THE MAIN IMPORTING COUNTRIES
According to an analysis by the energy research company Montel, the European states that have so far imported the most LNG from Russia are France, the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium.
EUROPEAN COMPANIES THAT IMPORT RUSSIAN LNG
In early February, the British oil company Shell said it was still receiving shipments of LNG from the Russian energy company Novatek: in 2015 the two companies reached a 20-year agreement to supply 900,000 tons of LNG per year from the Yamal LNG terminal in northwestern Siberia.
French oil company TotalEnergies owns a minority stake in Yamal LNG. Shell is the world's largest LNG trader .
Last year Shell said it would withdraw from all of its operations in Russia, including participation in the LNG plant on Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. TotalEnergies, on the other hand, has announced that it will continue to ship Russian LNG, given that the European Union has not subjected it to sanctions.
NOVATEK NUMBERS
Novatek is Russia's largest LNG producer: it has shipped nearly 21 million tons of liquefied fuel from the Yamal LNG site, and another 70,000 from the Kriogaz-Vysotk plant on the Baltic Sea.
Unlike state-owned Gazprom, which has a monopoly on pipeline exports of Russian gas, Novatek is formally an independent company. Some of its shareholders, however, are close to the Kremlin, which can therefore "strongly influence its operations", according to a study by Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/total-shell-gnl-russia-unione-europea/ on Fri, 24 Feb 2023 10:44:00 +0000.