At a plenary session of the European Parliament on Wednesday, Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson announced that the European Union has now entirely replaced Russian natural gas imports with LNG and pipeline gas from alternative reliable suppliers. The announcement – a lie both by commission and omission — was a prelude to a debate scheduled for Nov. 24 on a gas-price-cap proposal meant to prevent stratospheric energy costs for consumers.
In 2021, Russia supplied 155 bcm of gas to the EU, accounting for some 45% of the EU’s gas imports. This year that is expected to drop to about 60 bcm – but most of that came in the early part of the year, before the sanctions were tightened and before the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged—most likely by the U.K. and U.S. —to make sure nothing would flow.
