Some references (in English)
Here one can follow the Russian export in “real-time”.
It’s not all bad. The total export to EU has decreased from 488 M€ per day 22 February to 205 M€ per day 23 December. Still, it’s clear who the largest importer of Russian gas, oil and coal almost one year after the war started.
LNG to EU.
Yeah; we don’t hear this on the news here!
Russia is laughing all the way to the bank.
Peter wrote:
Yeah; we don’t hear this on the news here!
In Germany neither.
One would expect the investigative papers to be all over this story. Yet I don’t think I have seen this being mentioned even once.
MedEwok wrote:
In Germany neither.One would expect the investigative papers to be all over this story. Yet I don’t think I have seen this being mentioned even once.
Even the most sensationalist papers employ people who prefer a warm flat to a cold one. So I guess they shut up about it in order not to create the “moral obligation” to stop those imports too.
Let’s face it, Germany won’t get out of importing gas for a while. But it may be time to finally get their fingers out and exploit whatever sources they do have. When the whole gas problem came out, it transpired that i.e. Switzerland has got natural gas wells and even a bit of oil, but they were deemed to insignificant to exploit. Well, that may change now.
Looks to me as if the word “independence” may change a bit of meaning in the future…. and that may well mean to dig up your own backyard.
Peter wrote:
Russia is laughing all the way to the bank.
According to LeSving’s figures, export value is down to just above 40% of pre-war levels. That’s hardly something for Putin to laugh about but not a disaster either.
Isn’t it rather obvious? There is NO real shortage of gas anywhere in EU. Gas doesn’t magically appear from nowhere, and Russia isn’t sending gas back down into the wells 
Norwegian production was already at max before the war. They are trying every day to squeeze more out of it, but there is only so much one can do without new wells, new rigs and so on, and this takes several years, not to mention new pipelines.
The only place where more can be produced relatively fast is far north. They have the capacity, and the production is 100% for LNG already. That’s the only LNG facility in Norway btw and is now being enlarged.
The point is. EU has no sanctions on gas transported on ships (LNG), and no such sanctions are on the horizon. To transport the gas as LNG on ships is in general more expensive than directly through pipelines, but also way more flexible and much less vulnerable (to geopolitical changes )
Gas doesn’t magically appear from nowhere
Reuters article here on US LNG shipments to Europe.
In relation to LNG imported into the EU and it’s source, the following data point is provided.
“U.S. LNG exporters boosted shipments to Europe by more than 137% in the first 11 months of 2022 from the same period in 2021, according to data from Kpler, supplying more than half of Europe’s imported LNG”
More here
From the hors’s mouth, here:
But that’s only the first half of 2022.
Also from here:
Russia, the world’s fourth-largest LNG producer, currently makes up about 15% of Europe’s total LNG supply, a share that Kaushal Ramesh, a senior analyst for gas and LNG at Rystad, thinks will stay the same next year.
LeSving wrote:
The point is. EU has no sanctions on gas transported on ships (LNG), and no such sanctions are on the horizon. To transport the gas as LNG on ships is in general more expensive than directly through pipelines, but also way more flexible and much less vulnerable (to geopolitical changes )
Ultimately all this cuts both ways.
Yes, it shows that Europe cannot wean itself off Russian gas to the extent it would want. Russia is simply too big a producer of the stuff for that.
But it also shows that even in the midst of a war Putin frames as an indirect confrontation with “the West”, Russia cannot afford to stop gas exports to Europe. Simply because gas and oil are their only sources of convertible currency. Russia produces nothing of value except energy and they cannot afford to shun their customers even if they frame them as their enemies.
There is a really interesting series about recent Russian history called Traumazone 1985-1999. On BBC Iplayer. We watched all of it; the last episode just now. Really fascinating. Putin appears at the very end.
A review from your favourite newspaper
Lots of resonance with my childhood in Czechoslovakia…
