- At the end of April, Gazprom - a Russian gas company - stopped supplying Poland and Bulgaria as a consequence of the refusal to pay for gas in rubles, raising further concerns about the EU's energetic safety and the need for strategic diversification of energy resources imports.
- Historically, Russia is the most important gas supplier in the EU, increasing its share in total imports from 21% in 2005 to 31% in 2020. According to the GTAS Forecasting data, in 2021 Russian gas exports to the EU amounted to 36.5% of total gas imports excluding the intra-EU trade.
- At this point, further supply cutoff in Russian supplies to Europe is not expected. Both, Poland and Bulgaria, already started diversification of gas supplies and are likely to replace Russian gas by increasing imports from already existing trade partners, minimizing the threat of shortages.
- In the longer-term tendency to diversify gas imports is expected in the majority of the EU economies. The dependency on Russian gas will gradually decrease and likely be replaced by existing regional suppliers (e.g. Norway or Algeria) and other world's largest exporters of gas (the US, Qatar, or Australia). Reshaping of European Union's energetic safety may create the chance for new natural resources exporters from emerging markets.
For further details see:
Russian Gas Imports In The EU - Threat Or A Chance?