BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 26. Increased coal imports, perhaps from the US, might provide some immediate relief for Europe, Trend reports via The Atlantic Council.
The EU document targets a potential saving of 14 bcm from the residential sector. The Atlantic Council believes that this could be realistic.
“Consumers throughout the EU have experienced very high gas prices for several months now, and they will be beginning to consider actions for winter 2022-23 to reduce consumption of gas and electricity (though energy subsidies and rebates are likely to lower demand elasticity to some degree). On substitution, continued expansion of wind and solar capacity should allow a reduction in the call on gas-fired power. Increased coal imports, perhaps from the US, might provide some immediate relief. However, with the possible exception of some Balkan states, member states are not likely to see coal as more than an emergency measure because of its adverse impact on the climate,” reads the report released by The Atlantic Council.
The EU target for 2022 of replacing around 100 bcm of Russian gas looks unachievable, the report says.
“There will be more LNG in the global market, but the EU will need to compete for it with Asia, and 30 bcm looks more realistic than the 50 bcm target. On the other hand, an additional 10 bcma of pipeline gas might be more feasible. On the demand side, the residential sector reduction could be realistic, but the added contribution from wind and solar cannot be totally relied upon, as it depends on the weather. All in all, what the EU has described is a very tight balance, where everything earmarked has to work simultaneously. LNG capacity outages seen in 2021, or a pipeline compressor going down, for instance, would wreck the whole plan.”
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn