Brussels: Russia provided approximately 45 per cent of the EU’s gas imports in 2021, 27 per cent of crude oil and 46 per cent of coal, the European Commission said in a statement.
“In the gas sector, Russia provided around 45 per cent of the EU’s total gas imports in 2021. Over the past years, this number has been on average around 40 per cent. The other main gas suppliers to the EU were Norway (23 per cent), Algeria (12 per cent), the United States (6 per cent) and Qatar (5 per cent),” the statement says.
“For crude oil, Russia was also the largest supplier of EU imports (27 per cent), followed by Norway (8 per cent), Kazakhstan (8 per cent) and the USA (8 per cent). In the hard coal sector, even though import volumes have declined in recent years, Russia also remains the leading supplier (46 per cent), followed by US (15 per cent) and Australia (13 per cent),” it says.
The European Union has a potential to purchase an additional 50 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually, the commission said. “In recent months, the Commission could engage with a range of partners around the world to diversify supplies of gas through pipelines or through LNG.
The US, Norway, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Algeria, Egypt, Korea, Japan, Nigeria, Turkey, Israel are among those countries. This has resulted in record volumes of LNG imports in January and February. The EU has the potential to import a further 50 bcm of LNG on a yearly basis,” it said.
