France is working to diversify its natural gas supplies and do without Russia, which accounted for around 17% of its imports before the invasion of Ukraine but is now drastically reducing its deliveries to Europe. The giant Gazprom even announced on Wednesday the suspension of all its gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream gas pipeline.
“Since the war in Ukraine, we have sought to reduce our sensitivity to Russian gas and to replace these Russian supplies with gas from other sources,” said Claire Waysand, deputy general manager of Engie, the largest gas supplier in Ukraine, on Monday. France, which Gazprom accuses of not having paid the sums due for its deliveries.
Before the war in Ukraine, 36% of French imports of natural gas came from Norway, France’s main supplier, ahead of Russia (17%), Algeria (8%), the Netherlands (8%) , Nigeria (7%) and Qatar (2%), according to 2020 data from the Ministry of Ecological Transition. “Purchases from other countries, part of which relates to gas for which the place of production cannot be traced” represent 23% of gross entries, recalls the ministry.
Imports of liquefied natural gas soar
“Their development reflects a diversification of supplies made possible by the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG)”, adds the same source. TotalEnergies receives LNG cargoes from Russia, under long-term contracts with Yamal LNG, which it honors as one of its shareholders, as long as European governments do not take sanctions against Russian gas .
France, which currently has four LNG terminals in Montoir-de-Bretagne, Fos-sur-Mer (two terminals) and Dunkirk, is building a fifth off Le Havre. It thus follows a trend observed across Europe: whereas before the crisis, the EU normally imported 1,500 GWh per day of LNG, it now imports around 4,000 GWh per day. It thus compensates for an opposite trend concerning gas imported by gas pipeline, which rose in parallel from 7,700 GWh per day to 5,700, indicated the Ministry of Energy Transition.
The United States is one of the main countries to have enabled the growth of LNG imports on the continent: it represented 28% of the LNG arriving in Europe in 2021, and 45% in the first half of 2022. “We have diversified our imports to be no longer dependent on Russian gas for more than 9%, ”recalled Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher on Wednesday. The filling of gas stocks will also reach almost 100% “in about 2 weeks”, she recalled.
With regard to the diversity of origins, the government indicated that “announcements will be made soon” on a possible increase in deliveries of Algerian gas, after a visit by Emmanuel Macron to Algeria during which the President of the Republic was accompanied in particular of the president of Engie, Catherine MacGregor.
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“Discussions are underway with Sonatrach, which is the Algerian operator”, added Claire Waysand, qualifying however: “These are discussions on medium-long-term contracts, so we are not in the process of talk about next winter. However, she believes that “for next winter we have the volumes we need to get through the winter in an average climate”, in unison with the government, which is more worried in the event of a harsh winter.