The EU depends 80% on imported Natural Gas

The European Union and the UK have seen their dependence on natural gas imports rise to 80% in 2020 from 65% in 2010, with regional production collapsing, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the United Kingdom said on Friday . United States.

High dependence on gas imports and low levels of gas in storage played the main role that led to the gas and electricity crisis in Europe, where energy costs have soared in recent months.

In 2020, natural gas imports into the EU and the UK region accounted for 74% of all natural gas imports, and LNG accounted for the remaining 26% of imports, according to EIA data. this clearly shows how dependent people are on gas arriving through traditional gas pipelines, which makes the old continent dependent on stable suppliers such as Russia, Norway and Algeria.

The largest pipeline supplier is Russia, with over a third of all gas consumed by the UK and the 27 EU Member States.

Despite the construction of new pipelines, imports from Norway, a non-EU member, averaged around 15 million m2 per day between 2010 and 2020, as the development of new fields in the Barents Sea of ​​the continental shelf Norwegian was insufficient to compensate for declines in mature fields in the North Sea. But the

The UK, a major European natural gas producer along with Norway, could see gas production plummet by 75% by 2030 unless new offshore fields are approved and developed, says OGUK offshore industry body.

Among the countries that have most reduced gas extraction there is also Italy, which has reduced its production from 20 million SQM per day in 1995 to less than 5 in 2019. Environmental constraints and low cost price of imports in the past among the main causes. If we consider that now only 7.8% of the gas used is of national production, but that the potential is much higher, we can well understand what could or should be done in the short term and what strategic mistake it was to cut national production.

According to F itch Ratings , reduced stocks, reduced deliveries from the Russian giant Gazprom and increased geopolitical tensions have contributed to the already rigid European gas market and prompted the search for additional supplies.

"While Europe will continue to depend on Russian gas supplies in the short term, in the long run this could lead to a more diverse supplier base and a faster energy transition," Fitch said in an analysis this week. GW.

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The article The EU depends 80% on imported Natural Gas comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-ue-dipende-all80-dal-gas-naturale-importato/ on Sat, 12 Feb 2022 07:00:37 +0000.