European Union (EU) has continued to decrease its dependency on Russian energy supplies, as demonstrated by a decline in energy imports during the second quarter of 2023.
In a significant shift, the European Union (EU) has continued to decrease its dependency on Russian energy supplies, as demonstrated by a decline in energy imports during the second quarter of 2023, according to data from the EU statistics agency Eurostat.
Following a substantial surge between 2021 and 2022, EU imports registered a notable drop of 39.4% in value and 11.3% in volume in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year. This follows earlier declines of 26.5% and 6.1% in value and volume respectively in the first quarter.
Russia, which held the top position as the EU’s primary supplier of petroleum oils with a market share of 15.9% in the second quarter of 2022, witnessed a significant decrease to just 2.7% in the corresponding period this year, relegating it to the twelfth position among suppliers, as reported by Eurostat. Meanwhile, Norway, Kazakhstan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia experienced an uptick in their market shares over the same period.
Since December 2022, the EU has prohibited seaborne imports of Russian crude oil, and in February 2023, it implemented an embargo on refined oil products. These measures were taken to reduce reliance on Russian energy resources and as a response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Eurostat noted, “EU imports of natural gas dropped significantly (-17% in terms of volume) in the second quarter of 2023, compared with the same period in 2022. This reduction could have been triggered by the EU reduction plan, where EU countries committed to reducing gas consumption.”
With regard to natural gas in its gaseous state, Russia’s share experienced a decline of 14.5 percentage points year-on-year, accounting for 13.8% of total EU energy imports in the second quarter. In contrast, Algeria and Norway saw increases in their shares by 9.3 and 6.2 percentage points respectively, with Norway emerging as the EU’s top supplier.
During the same period, the United States maintained its position as the EU’s primary supplier of liquefied natural gas, representing 46.4% of total EU imports, followed by Russia (12.4%) and Qatar (10.9%).