Member states of the European Union (EU) increased their purchases of Russian gas by nearly 2 billion USD in December 2024 - the highest level since the beginning of 2023, TASS reported on February 17, citing data from the European statistics agency Eurostat.
The increase comes before Kiev suspended the transit of gas via the Ukrainian pipeline to Europe.
Ukraine has refused to extend a five-year transit contract with Russian energy giant Gazprom by the end of 2024, cutting off Russian gas flows from EU countries including Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Italy, as well as Moldova.
In December 2024, EU countries were said to have spent $972 million on Russian pipeline gas. Meanwhile, the value of the bloc's liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports is up to 961 million USD. Both figures are at their highest level since the beginning of 2023.
TASS noted that Russia's LNG imports skyrocketed by 52% compared to November 2024 and 38% compared to the same period in 2023.
France and Belgium imported 422 million USD and 144 million USD respectively from Russia, becoming the largest buyers of super cold fuel. Meanwhile, the Netherlands imported US$103 million worth of LNG from Russia, down 15.5% from the previous month.
In 2024, the EU paid $7.9 billion to Russian pipeline gas, compared to $8.3 billion in 2023. TASS also said that the European Union bought LNG from Russia for 7.5 billion USD, down from 8.5 billion USD in 2023.
France ($3.25 billion), Spain ($2.1 billion) and Belgium ($1.15 billion) are the largest importers of Russian LNG among EU countries. The Netherlands is believed to have purchased 785 million USD of LNG.
EU countries continue to buy both pipeline gas and LNG despite pledging to eliminate dependence on Russian energy. Although the amount of pipeline gas imported from Russia has decreased significantly due to the conflict in Ukraine and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline in September 2022, members of the bloc continue to buy.
LNG is only partially targeted by EU sanctions. In June 2024, the EU banned relocation, ship transfers and ship transfers to shore with the aim of re-exporting LNG to third countries via the bloc. These restrictions have a transition period of 9 months.
The remaining shipments of gas are transported by pipeline from Russia to Europe, now via the TurkStream gas pipeline, which runs from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea and then to the border with EU member Greece. One branch of the pipeline supplies gas to the Turkish domestic market and the other to customers in Southern and Central Europe.
