Today Russia supplies 40% of European gas, and 30% of crude oil and refined oil.
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The war in Ukraine is also being played out over gas and electricity, and that could bring Europe and the Ukrainian government even closer together.
On Monday, February 28, European energy ministers held an extraordinary meeting on the subject. Europe wants to support Ukraine for its electricity supply and also wants to reduce its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons, especially gas.
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Moscow indeed supplies 40% of European gas, and 30% of crude oil and refined oil that we consume. For France, this represents 17% of imported gas and 13% of oil. Europe therefore wishes to strengthen the sovereignty of its energy system, as it is trying to do for critical raw materials. It is a way of getting out of its dependence on Moscow and a potential means of accelerating its climate plan, which involves reducing fossil fuels.
On Monday, the French Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili indicated that the Union’s gas reserves were sufficient to survive the winter. She said that the ministers also want to be able to activate exceptional financial support measures for the most vulnerable consumers in the event of a sudden rise in prices. That’s for the short term.
For next winter, Europe wants to diversify its sources of supply by buying from other countries. Italy, for example, turned to Algeria. It also wants to bet on liquefied natural gas (LNG) which today only represents a small share of imports: 20%. But according to the President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen, the EU has a good storage and distribution network, which should be strengthened according to the President of TotalEnergies. To increase capacity, it would indeed be necessary to build new terminals to regasify the LNG and this will take time. Hence the idea of supporting this plan with a new concept: the reduction of our consumption, or energy sobriety.
Last project for Europe, finally: support for Ukraine for its electricity supply. On February 24, Kiev separated from the supervision of Moscow and since then it has urgently requested to be connected to the European network to consolidate its supply. It is possible but technically complicated. The Europeans want security guarantees in particular to avoid suffering a blackout if the Russians seize a power plant.