Page 4 - AfrOil Week 12 2022

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil

Skikda LNG plant (Photo: Sinopec)
Can the EU replace Russian gas

with North African supplies?

Experts from Verisk Maplecroft and Welligence Energy Analytics speak to NewsBase about

how North African natural gas producers might respond as Europe’s energy mix changes

EARLIER this month, the European Union that the European Commission reported late
declared its intention to reduce its dependence last October that the bloc’s renewable genera-
WHAT: on Russian natural gas imports. More specifi- tion capacity now accounted for 38% of the total,
North Africa has the cally, it has announced that it will aim to cut the outstripping fossil fuel generation capacity at
potential to provide the volume of gas purchased from Russia by two 37%. However, this additional capacity has not
EU with some of the gas it thirds by the end of 2022 and then bring the fig- given European energy markets the resiliency
needs to replace Russian ure all the way down to zero by the end of the they need to withstand supply pressures. Even
supplies. decade. before the eruption of war in Ukraine, Euro-
In the long term, of course, the EU hopes to pean gas prices were soaring and there was talk
WHY: eliminate its need for Russian gas by eliminating of bringing shuttered coal-fired thermal power
Time and additional in- the fuel from its energy mix – that is, by switch- plants (TPPs) back online – and all because
vestments will be needed
to bring these additional ing, to the greatest extent possible, to low- or Russia was reluctant to acquiesce to European
volumes to market. zero-carbon energy sources. In the short term, buyers’ requests for more fuel this past winter.
however, it is not clear that solar, wind, hydro- This leaves the EU in the position of needing
WHAT NEXT: power and other forms of renewable energy to secure very large volumes of gas very quickly.
Regional collaboration can serve as immediate substitutes for the vast The amounts involved are large, as data from
will probably be the key amounts of gas that Russia has delivered to the the International Energy Agency (IEA) show
to opening up Egypt’s bloc’s 27 member states. that the EU imported no less than 155bn cubic
export capacity. The EU’s renewable energy capacity has been metres of Russian gas last year. (Two thirds of
rising very quickly in recent years, to the point that comes to more than 100 bcm.)

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