EU countries have agreed on a fourteenth package of sanctions against Russia in response to the war in Ukraine. Diplomats confirmed the sanctions on Thursday, including the first measures against Russian LNG.
The EU has restricted the re-export of Russian LNG in its waters, but has not completely banned imports, in contrast to the ban on Russian oil from the sea in 2022. Nevertheless, some EU countries continue to import gas from Russia via pipelines through Ukraine.
Diplomats said the package also sanctions three Russian LNG projects and includes a clause allowing Sweden and Finland to cancel Russian LNG contracts.
Belgium, which holds the rotating EU presidency until July 1, said on social media platform X that the package “maximizes the impact of existing sanctions by closing loopholes.”
EU ambassadors have just agreed on a strong and substantive fourteenth package of sanctions in response to Russian aggression against Ukraine.
This package provides new targeted measures and maximizes the impact of existing sanctions by closing loopholes.— Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU 2024 (@EU2024BE) June 20, 2024
The EU ambassadors met on May 8 to discuss possible actions for the 14th round of sanctions against Russian LNG, as the European Commission (EC) aimed to approve these sanctions by July.
Reuters said countries discussed the proposed new measures for over a month and, under the influence of Germany, weakened one of the Commission’s suggestions to prevent further circumvention.
Most of the EU’s current measures are still in place, including the ban on imports of Russian oil by sea and restrictions on the export of high technology goods to Russia.
However, Reuters reported that gas market experts suggest this decision is likely to have minimal impact as gas transfers through EU ports to Asia account for only around 10% of total Russian LNG exports.
On the contrary, to reduce its dependence on Russian fossil fuels by 2027, the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) has proposed that Europe should “gradually reduce” its Russian LNG imports, starting with sporadic Russian LNG imports.
According to ACER data, Russia’s LNG production reached 42 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2023. The top 28 destinations for Russian LNG were the EU (18 billion cubic meters), China (11 billion cubic meters), Japan (8 billion cubic meters) and South Korea (2 billion cubic meters), together accounting for more than 90% of all Russian LNG production.
Earlier, Offshore technology reported that Gazprom, the Russian state energy company, has delivered the second shipment of LNG from Russia’s Portovaya LNG plant on the Baltic Sea to Spain. According to Reuters‘analysis of shipping data, unlike oil exports, Russian LNG exports have not faced Western sanctions.
Urgewald, a German environmental research nonprofit, found that Russian LNG is regularly shipped to Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Spain. In 2023, the EU received 31 million tons of Russian LNG, with imports reaching a monthly record of 3.2 million tons in December.
“EU hits Russia with LNG sanctions for the first time” was originally created and published by Offshore Technology, a brand owned by GlobalData.
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