EU wants to abandon LNG and aluminum from Russia

According to TASS news agency on January 15, Bloomberg quoted sources as saying that the European Union is considering the possibility of including in the 16th package of sanctions against Russia aimed at gradually abandoning Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as banning aluminum imports from Russia.

The “timing and scale” of the aluminum supply restrictions have yet to be determined, it said, adding that it is unclear exactly what form the phase-out of LNG from Russia will take.

In addition, the EU is considering the possibility of introducing sanctions against Russian courts and disconnecting new banks from the SWIFT cross-border payment system.

In 2024, the European Union bought a record amount of Russian LNG, despite efforts to reduce its dependence on Russian energy. According to the Financial Times, citing the analytics company Kpler, as of mid-December 2024, the EU imported a record 16.5 million tons of Russian LNG. This figure is higher than in 2023, when the import volume reached 15.18 million tons, and compared to 2022 - 15.2 million tons.

The Financial Times draws attention to the growth in the purchase of Russian LNG on the spot market. This type of contract accounts for 33% of LNG sales from Russia to Europe. For comparison, in 2023, the share of such transactions was 23%.

According to Eurostat data and TASS calculations, the EU purchased 701.5 million euros in Russian LNG in October, the maximum amount since November 2023, of which more than half came from France. Based on the results from January to October 2024, the European Union paid more than 6 billion euros for pipeline gas from Russia and 5.7 billion euros for Russian LNG.

Under the RePower EU program, the European Union plans to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas by two-thirds by the end of 2022 and to zero by the end of 2027. At the same time, the cost of purchasing Russian LNG for the European Union has increased by 150% over three years due to increased prices and volumes of LNG supplies from Russia.