The European Commission intends to reduce purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) after Russia’s pipeline gas transit through Ukraine stops on 31 December 2024.
European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson told reporters at an EU Council meeting:
We have to discuss the extension of measures to limit gas consumption and we will discuss the consequences of stopping the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine. I am also sure that we will have a good discussion on how we can further reduce the supply [to EU countries] of Russian liquefied natural gas.
Simson also emphasised that under the European Commission’s RePowerEU plan, EU countries are obliged to “completely phase out Russian gas by 2027”. The directive to ban Russian LNG supplies is planned to be introduced in April.
Earlier, Politico reported with reference to the European Commission documents that after the termination of the Ukrainian transit of Russian pipeline gas, the EU will immediately lose 5% of its total imports, the main blow will fall on Hungary, Slovakia and Austria, which the European Commission intends to supply mainly with liquefied natural gas via Germany, Austria or Italy. However, according to EC estimates obtained by Politico, this would lead to new price increases in these countries due to rising transport and storage costs.
As for LNG, European experts estimate that following the EU’s rejection of Russian pipeline gas purchases in 2022, EU countries sharply increased their purchases of Russian LNG, which have grown by 40 per cent since then.
