Page 116 - RusRPTOct23

Belgium's energy minister Tinne Van der Straten has called on the EU to limit Russian gas imports after a report showed her country is one of the world's biggest LNG recipients due to its status as a transit hub. Belgium is the third largest importer of Russian LNG in the world according to Global Witness, taking 17% of the country's LNG exports, behind only China and Spain. So now Van der Straten has told the Financial Times that it is "absolutely essential" that the bloc achieves its goal of weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels by 2027 to avoid being "held hostage" by Moscow.
In 2023, the EU countries intend to purchase record volumes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia, despite the desire of the union to abandon Russian fuel by 2027.
In the first seven months of this year, Russian LNG imports increased by 40% (from 15mn to 22mn cubic meters) compared to the same period in 2021. This makes Russia the second fuel supplier to the EU after the United States, according to a study by the international non-governmental organization Global Witness. During this period, according to their estimates, European states spent almost 5.3bn euros on the purchase of Russian LNG.
According to Global Witness, from January to July 2023, the EU share in Russian LNG exports was 52%, last year it was 49%, and in 2021 - 39%. Analysts noted that the growth of European LNG imports from Russia over the year (40%) significantly outpaced the global average increase in LNG sales, which amounted to 6%. Spain (18% of Russia's total sales) and Belgium (17%) became the leaders in the volume of imported Russian liquefied gas after China.
At the beginning of the NWO, the growth of Russian LNG imports was insignificant. According to industry analyst Kpler, in January-July 2022, EU countries imported 1.7% more Russian LNG than in the same record period last year. According to the Financial Times newspaper, most of the Russian volumes come from the Yamal LNG plant, the controlling stake of which belongs to the Russian company Novatek (50.1%). The remaining stakes belong to the French Total Energies (20%), the Chinese CNPC (20%) and the Chinese state Silk Road Fund (9.9%). The sharp jump in Russian LNG imports, the journalists of the publication believe, could have occurred due to a low base, since before the hostilities in Ukraine, the EU did not import significant volumes of LNG due to its dependence on pipeline gas from Russia.
There are currently no direct bans on the supply of Russian gas to the EU within the framework of 11 sanctions packages. At the end of March, EU energy ministers approved granting member states the right to impose a ban on LNG imports from Russia without imposing new sanctions by the EU itself.
Saudi Arabia's oil group Aramco said on September 28 it had agreed to
116 RUSSIA Country Report October 2023 www.intellinews.com