BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 24
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
In the third quarter of 2019 the total net EU gas imports reached 86 billion cubic meters (bcm), slightly up from 85.6 bcm in the same period of 2018, Trend reports citing European Commission’s Gas Market Report.
The five biggest importers in the EU in Q3 2019 were Italy, Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands and respectively with net imports of 18 bcm, 17 bcm, 10 bcm, 10 bcm and 4 bcm, representing together around two thirds of the total EU net gas imports in this quarter.
In the first three quarters of 2019 the total net EU gas imports in the EU amounted to 291 bcm, which was 11 percent more than in the same period of 2018, amid increasing consumption (+2.9 percent) and decreasing domestic production (-7.4 percent), implying a further increase in gas import dependency in the EU.
Reportedly, net imports in different EU countries showed a high variation in Q3 2019, ranging from an increase of 50 percent to a decrease of 24 percent in year-on-year comparison. Among big gas consumer countries net imports decreased in Germany (by 13 percent), in the UK and it remained stable, in Italy it rose by 6 percent and in Spain it went up measurably, by 50 percent.
According to ENTSO-G data, imports amounted to 1 044 TWh in the third quarter of 2019. Imports from both Russia and Norway increased slightly (by 3 percent and 1 percent, respectively), and imports from Libya also went up measurably (by 11 percent in Q3 2019 in year-onyear comparison. In contrast, imports from Algeria fell significantly, by 37 percent in the same period, primarily owing to uncompetitive oil-price indexation contracts. At the same time, LNG imports, though in a slower pace than in the previous two quarters, increased further year-on-year and reached 243 TWh in Q3 2019.
Russia remained the top pipeline gas supplier of the EU, covering 45 percent of total extra-EU gas imports in the third quarter of 2019, which was close to the average share of Russia within the total pipeline imports over the last five years.
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