EU's Imports of Russian Gas Continue to Grow, Share Reaches 15% - Russian Foreign Ministry
© Sputnik / Dmitrij Leltschuk
/ Subscribe
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Imports of Russian gas by EU countries continue to grow, with its share in the union's total imports reaching 15%, Dmitry Birichevsky, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's economic cooperation department, told Sputnik.
"At the same time, despite the EU plan adopted in May 2022 to reduce hydrocarbon imports from Russia, European trade statistics show that Russian gas imports to EU countries are trending upward. Thus, in the first half of this year, the EU imported more natural gas from Russia than in January-June 2023. In general, at the moment, Russian gas in the union's total imports reaches 15%," he said.
In the first quarter of this year, France more than doubled its purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to 4.4 billion cubic meters, a significant portion of which is being re-exported, Birichevsky added.
In March 2022, the EU developed the RePowerEU plan, which sets out measures to gradually reduce fuel imports from Russia, increase the reliability of energy supply and support the green transition, proposing further measures to reduce demand for gas and electricity.
Russia said multiple times that the West had made a serious mistake by refusing to buy hydrocarbons from Russia, it will fall into a new, stronger dependence, due to higher prices. Those who refused, still buy more expensively through intermediaries and will buy Russian oil and gas anyway, Moscow said.
