2024-05-06 08:59:30
The European Union is moving to impose sanctions on the “lucrative” gas sector in Russia, for the first time since Moscow invaded Ukraine more than two years ago, according to the American magazine “Politico”.
The magazine quoted three diplomats from the European Union as saying that the European Commission is preparing, as part of the fourteenth sanctions package, to issue a ban on the resale of Russian liquefied natural gas in European Union ports.
They said that the Commission would also request “imposition of restrictions on 3 new Russian liquefied natural gas projects.”
But the proposals on the table, according to the magazine, “will only touch a small portion of the billions that Moscow receives annually from liquefied natural gas, leaving it with a lot of money to support its war machine.”
According to experts and data analyzed by Politico, the sanctions “will only reach about a quarter of Russia’s profits from liquefied natural gas, amounting to 8 billion euros ($8.6 billion).”
These sanctions come amid repeated warnings that European Union efforts to “stifle” Moscow’s fossil fuel revenues have largely failed.
Although the European Union banned imports of Russian coal and seaborne crude oil, many “loopholes and evasive methods kept money flowing to the Kremlin,” according to the magazine.
According to Politico, the European Union has made little progress in punishing the liquefied natural gas sector. Despite reducing imports, which constituted only 5 percent of gas consumption in the European Union last year, the sector remains a “cash cow” on which the Kremlin depends. To wage war.
Without European ports as a stopover, Russia will have to use icebreakers to penetrate the Arctic Sea, to deliver its gas to Asia, according to the magazine.
This would harm the huge “Yamal” liquefied natural gas plant in Russia, specifically in the far north of Siberia, which costs $27 billion, according to Laura Page, a gas expert at Kpler data analytics company.
“If they cannot transport in Europe, they may have to use ice tankers on longer journeys,” she said, meaning Russia “may not be able to get as many cargoes out of Yamal, because its ships cannot get there and back as quickly.” “Whatever is possible.”
Meanwhile, energy analyst at the Center for Energy and Clean Air Research, Petras Katinas, said that this shift would create a gap of two billion euros in LNG revenues, an amount that represents 28 percent of Russia’s LNG profits, and slightly more than a fifth of its exports to Russia. European Union last year.
Katinas added that the ban “constitutes a good first step forward,” but “is not enough” if the EU wants to “stifle” the Kremlin’s cash flows.
For its part, the British newspaper “The Telegraph” revealed in a separate report that the Russian company “Gazprom” suffered “its worst loss in a quarter of a century,” as it lost 629 billion rubles (almost $7 billion) during the past year, with a decline in its revenues.
According to the Telegraph, “The loss represents a humiliation for businessmen and for the regime as well, as Russian President Vladimir Putin believed that the vast network of pipelines transporting gas to Europe would force Western leaders to back down and allow him to seize Ukraine.” .
“Gazprom” stopped publishing details of its exports starting in 2023, but its total sales outside Russia fell by more than half last year, according to the British newspaper, which says that Europe compensated for the loss of Russian gas with “an exorbitant cost,” which means that “Moscow has lost its grip.” On the Western market forever.”
Norway is now the largest exporter of gas to the European Union, having increased its sales from 79.5 billion cubic meters to 87.8 billion cubic meters. European imports from the United States also rose, from just under 19 billion cubic meters in 2021 to 56.2 billion cubic meters in 2023.
Qatar provided 15.5 billion cubic meters last year, which is approximately equivalent to British gas sales to Europe, according to the Telegraph.
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2024-05-06 08:59:30