The gas vector of the democratization of Russia? Missed bet of Europe and especially of Germany, which has deeply oriented its model on imports in recent decades.
franceinfo: Was gas discussed a lot at the European summit on March 24 and 25?
Gregoire Lecalot: No question so far of an embargo on Gazprom deliveries, despite the courageous appeals of certain countries, such as Latvia, which nevertheless depends 100% on gas from Moscow. European countries are committed to dependency reduction policies.
This is the case of Germany, which has already gone from a 55% dependency before the war to 40% today. But a country cannot change gas supplier with a simple phone call. Germany must thus redo its network of gas pipelines, build LNG ports, which it does not have, to import liquefied natural gas, LNG, by ship. It will not be able to do without Russian gas before 2024.
The United States announced aid to Europe to reduce its dependence. That won’t be enough?
Joe Biden has promised an additional 15 billion cubic meters of LNG. They will be delivered to the United Kingdom before leaving for European gas pipelines. American deliveries will increase, with 50 billion cubic meters of LNG in 2030. But we are far from Russian deliveries. They represent 150 billion cubic meters per year.
The Europeans intend to turn to other suppliers: Norway, Qatar, Algeria. For this, the commission intends to set up a common purchasing platform.
What does storage represent, which the commission wants to strengthen?
This is a quarter of European gas consumption: 100 billion cubic meters. And if the commission wants to make it compulsory to fill the geological storage sites to 80, then 90% at the start of winter, it is because that was not the case this year. The quantities stored have reached a historically low level. Stocks were at 2 billion cubic meters instead of 7 to 8.
And the cause is that the Russians have reduced their deliveries in 2021. Contracts oblige Gazprom to deliver minimum quantities. The Russian public giant did, but it did little to supply the immediate markets, the so-called spot market, on which European suppliers also buy to fill their stocks.
From the summer of 2021, Gazprom’s deliveries have increased from 3 to 2 billion cubic meters per week. They did not increase again until the outbreak of war, on the initiative of the Russians, who needed foreign currency. And the Europeans, always happy to have more Russian gas, were quick to buy it.
It should be noted that if the storages were at a low level, it is also because this year, Gazprom has hardly filled the sites it has in Germany and Austria. If the European Commission makes the minimum filling compulsory, the Russian giant will have to accept, under penalty of risk of expropriation, unless by then an embargo settles the question.