Brussels (Times Of Ocean)- Over €17 billion has been imported from Russia since the Ukraine war began.
Europe, the world’s second biggest oil importer, is the largest buyer of Russian oil, importing €5.8 billion as the war enters its fourth week.
As of Monday, the EU’s imports of natural gas, oil, and coal from Russia have reached approximately €17 billion ($18.7 billion), according to data compiled by Anadolu Agency from live tracker published by Europe Beyond Coal with Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) analysis.
The cost of natural gas imports via Ukraine, as well as liquefied natural gas (LNG), has reached €10.6 billion since the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Gazprom, the Russian gas company, reports that gas flows to the EU via Ukraine reached 62 million cubic meters on Feb. 23, 110 million cubic meters on Feb. 25, and 109 million cubic meters on Feb. 26.
As a result of the data, the level of gas flow transmission has been between 100 and 110 million cubic meters since the beginning of the war.
Gazprom spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov confirmed last week that gas flow of around 105 million cubic meters to the EU via Ukraine is proceeding at “routine levels”.
In spite of harsh economic sanctions by the US, UK, and EU against Russia, the EU has so far excluded the energy sector from sanctions due to its significant dependency on Russian imports. In spite of this, the US banned the import of Russian oil, LNG, and coal, while the UK agreed to phase out oil imports from Russia by the end of the year.
By the end of 2022, the EU’s new energy strategy, REPowerEU, aims to reduce the EU’s gas imports from Russia by nearly two-thirds, and make Europe independent from all Russian fossil fuels well before 2030.
In 2021, the EU imported an average of over 380 million cubic meters per day of gas by pipeline from Russia, which is equivalent to around 140 billion cubic meters annually, plus around 15 billion cubic meters of LNG.
155 billion cubic meters of gas imported from Russia accounted for around 45% of EU imports and almost 40% of its total gas consumption in 2021.
EU largest buyer of Russian oil
A live tracker showed that EU oil imports neared €5.8 billion and coal imports reached €436 million since the war began.
The world’s largest oil exporter supplies approximately 8% of global demand. According to Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, the EU is the world’s second-largest buyer of Russian oil.
Bruegel explained in a recent analysis that Russia’s oil infrastructure was built to serve eastern European markets, specifically the Druzhba pipeline, which supplies crude oil directly to six refineries in the EU.
The EU imports 70% of its thermal coal from Russia, while Germany and Poland are especially dependent on thermal coal from Russia.
“While stopping Russian gas imports would be difficult and costly, but feasible, it will likely be less painful for the EU to manage a complete interruption of Russian oil and coal imports. Oil and coal are more global and liquid markets than gas, and rely less on rigid infrastructure like Europe’s gas import pipelines,” Bruegel said in the analysis.
Although a European halt to Russian oil and coal supplies would have significant first-round effects on rising prices, the think-tank said Europe would be able to attract more crude oil, oil products, and coal due to its wealth, compared to emerging and developing economies, which would struggle more and more.