In May, for the first time in almost two years, Russia overtook the USA and became the largest supplier of gas to Europe.

According to the analytical center ICIS, last month Russian gas accounted for 15% of the total volume of supplies to the EU, Great Britain, Switzerland, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, the Financial Times reports .

Russia exports gas to the European market through pipelines and tankers (liquefied natural gas – LNG, LNG).

At the same time, the share of liquefied natural gas from the USA on the European market decreased to 14%. Before that, the US was ahead of Russia from September 2022, and from 2023, American gas accounted for about a fifth of LNG supplies to the region.

ICIS analysts explain the decline in LNG exports from the US to the failure of a large liquefied gas export facility. At the same time, Russia has increased gas exports through Turkey ahead of planned maintenance of gas pipelines in June.

ICIS chief gas markets analyst Tom Marzek-Manser notes that this trend is “unlikely to continue” as Russia prepares to supply more LNG to Asian countries. In particular, China remains its largest consumer, having purchased more than 6.8 million tons of LNG by the end of 2023.

“Russia has limited flexibility to maintain this share (in Europe, – ed.) as demand increases ahead of next winter, while overall US LNG production only increases, and more new capacities will enter the world market by the end of the year,” – Manser explained.

As reported, in the new package of EU sanctions against Russia, the European Commission proposed to ban the re-export of Russian liquefied gas from European ports, which could deprive the Russian Federation of significant profits. At the same time, there are no plans to ban the import of Russian gas. However, Hungary promised to block even such restrictions.

Author:  Mykhailo Orlyuk Джерело: https://biz.censor.net/n3495107

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