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Comment by anovikov | Hacker News Reader

This isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. Ukraine gas transit has ended so this year, the numbers will go down again to new historic low.

Vast majority of what's left is LNG, which is rather hard to shut off because it's easy to conceal it's origin, but for the same reason, it's not a source of any danger to Europe: Putin can't shut it off from his side, either - because the stream is managed by international traders so there is no way he could say "no selling it to Europeans". Goal of getting rid of Russian energy was to limit political influence/blackmail potential and LNG imports are safe from that.

Apart from LNG, there is Turkstream. It provides little and will be shut down by 2027. There is very little friction about it.

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Yes, instead of cheaper gas via pipelines, we now pay more for more expensive LNG, originating from the same source. The alternative is what... even more expensive american LNG?

Amount of Russian LNG that enters the system is insignificant, don't exaggerate it. It's 15% of overall LNG imports at most. Price for all LNG is the same because it circulates on the same, global market. Pipeline gas comes with political liabilities.

And the real alternative is of course, deep cuts in gas consumption. Which is what RepowerEU is trying to achieve.

By the way, 2024 Russian gas imports show a slight increase only because 2023 decrease went ahead of plan. 2023 plan was 68 bcm and only 45 bcm were imported, even 2024 went ahead of reduction plan and 2025 is certain to be ahead of plan, too.

Given that Russia had troubles supplying gas via pipeline (remember the five NS1 pumps that failed and the sixth pump that had to be shut down?) and given that Baltic infrastructure is constantly being damaged, the more expensive LNG should be considered a risk premium. It's harder to attack and can be diverted in times of need, one of the reasons Europe got so unscathed through the gas crisis.

And if pipeline gas is cheaper is also up for debate, because gas is gas to the markets and the long-running supply contracts (which turned out to be worthless because Russia was suffering a conveniently-timed force majeure) had indexed prices.

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