Russian gas supplies to Europe in May exceeded US gas exports for the first time in almost two years , reported the Financial Times (FT) newspaper with reference to the consulting company ICIS.
The publication recalls that the USA overtook the Russian Federation as the main supplier of gas to Europe in September 2022. In addition, from 2023 the USA provides 20% of all European gas imports. However, in May, according to ICIS, Russian pipeline gas and seaborne shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exceeded American ones, accounting for 15% of all supplies in the European Union, Great Britain, Switzerland, Serbia, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. US LNG accounted for 14% of all European gas imports last month, the lowest level since August 2022.
„It is amazing to see how the share of Russian gas in the European market is increasing after everything we have been through and after all the efforts to reduce imports from the Russian Federation and reduce risks in the matter of energy supplies” , said ICIS Head of Gas Market Analyst Tom Marzek-Manser. The FT noted that gas flows in May may have been affected by outages at a major LNG export facility in Texas, as well as increased supplies of Russian gas through Turkey due to scheduled pipeline maintenance in June.
Marzek-Manser expressed the opinion that the Russian Federation is unlikely to be able to maintain leadership in the issue of gas supplies to Europe, given the sanctions restrictions and the growth of LNG production in the US. In the long term, the European Commission is interested in expanding gas supplies to the EU via Azerbaijan via the Southern Gas Transport Corridor, but currently they are not enough to replace the 14 billion cubic meters of Russian gas delivered to the European Union via a pipeline through Ukraine.< /span>