Spain has positioned itself as the second most important buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia in the world, only behind China, according to data from the consulting firm Kpler collected by the report published by the NGO Global Witness yesterday
Specifically, between January and July 2023, Spain acquired 18% of the total sales of this raw material from Russia, and China bought 20%. In third place is Belgium, with 17% of Russian production. Before the war broke out in Ukraine, Spain was in fifth place and Belgium in seventh.
The data is not only striking because of the difference in the size of the countries, but because while in China there is no impediment to these acquisitions, the European authorities have demanded that the countries limit acquisitions to contracts signed before the war with Ukraine and not that they do not expand them.
The extreme dependence of the countries of the Old Continent on natural gas has prevented trade with Russia from being prohibited, which is the case with oil. But despite this warning, between January and July 2023 EU countries bought 22 million cubic meters of LNG, compared to 15 million cubic meters purchased during the same period in 2022, an increase of 40%. a fact that represents a much more pronounced increase than the global average, which was just 6%.
According to Kpler data, EU countries have spent almost €5.3 billion buying more than half of all LNG from Russia in the first seven months of 2023. According to Global Witness, EU countries now buy the most of Russia’s supply, and estimates that between January and July the EU bought 52% of Russia’s exports, up from 49% in 2022 and 39% in 2021. “Buying Russian gas has the same impact as buying Russian oil. Both finance the war in Ukraine and every euro means more bloodshed. These countries should align their actions with their words and ban the Russian LNG trade, which is fueling both the war and the climate crisis,” said Jonathan Noronha-Gant, senior fossil fuel campaigner at Global Witness.
Both sources from the European Union and the major operators point out that some traders could be taking advantage of the increase in storage capacity in Europe in general and in Spain in particular, with the El Musel plant in Gijón as a center logistic European companies say that they have not increased the contracts already signed, as they had been asked to do, despite the fact that they remember that there is not enough gas in the world to compensate for the Russian one. Without these purchases, electricity prices would skyrocket. Only the progress of renewable energies will be able to stop the current dependency.
