Europe’s gas market has undergone a fundamental transformation. Russia, once the EU’s leading supplier of pipeline gas, has fallen to third place with a share of just under 7%. Norway and the United States have taken its place. Yet the promised shift away from fossil fuels has not happened—the pipeline has simply been replaced by LNG tankers.
Gas supplies from Norway now account for 37.4% of total EU gas imports, with almost all of that volume delivered through pipelines. The Scandinavian country has firmly established itself as Europe’s leading pipeline gas supplier.
Algeria remains the second-largest pipeline supplier, with a 12.5% share. Russia, at 6.7%, ranks third. Azerbaijan accounts for 4.6%, while Libya has almost disappeared from the market, with a symbolic 0.1% share.
The biggest structural shift in recent years has been the explosive growth of liquefied natural gas (LNG). LNG now represents 38.7% of total European gas imports, or almost two-fifths of the market. This creates dependence on global spot prices, the availability of LNG carriers, spare regasification capacity, and intense competition with Asian buyers for each cargo.
The United States has become Europe’s leading LNG supplier. American gas now accounts for 22.1% of total EU imports, a larger share than pipeline supplies from Algeria, Azerbaijan, or Russia individually.
Despite political pressure and efforts to push it out of the European market, Russian LNG continues to account for around 6% of total EU gas imports. That is well below previous levels, but it remains a significant share of the market.
The bottom line is that talk of a complete energy transition proved premature. Europe has largely replaced one dependency with another: Russian pipeline gas has given way to Norwegian pipeline supplies and U.S. LNG. At the same time, greater exposure to the global LNG market makes prices more volatile than they were during the era of long-term pipeline contracts.
Europe’s gas paradigm has indeed changed, but not in the way policymakers originally envisioned. Rather than moving away from hydrocarbons, the continent has switched suppliers and shifted toward a more expensive and less predictable segment of the global gas market.
Source: @nefte_baza
Image: Stanislav Krasilnikov / TASS
