European imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia at ‘record levels’
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Rystad Energy releases data days after Ukraine stopped flows of Russian gas through its pipelines. Europe bought a record amount of liquefied natural gas from Russia last year, data shows, despite EU efforts to ditch the fossil fuels funding Putin’s war chest.
Ships carrying 17.8m tonnes of ultra-cold Russian gas docked in European ports in 2024, up by more than 2m tonnes from the year before, according to analysts Rystad Energy. Jan-Eric Fähnrich, a gas analyst at Rystad Energy, said LNG flows were not only on the rise but “at record levels”.
Europe has slashed its vast imports of piped Russian gas since the start of the Ukraine war but has increasingly purchased shipments of LNG from a number of countries, including Russia. Last year, it overtook Qatar as Europe’s second-biggest supplier of LNG, behind the US.
In 2024, Europe brought in 49.5bn cubic metres (bcm) of Russian gas through pipelines, and a further 24.2bcm in cold liquid form on ships, according to Fähnrich. Some of the LNG will have been resold to other countries, he added. The figures were revealed days after Ukraine stopped flows of Russian gas through its pipelines, ending a Soviet-era energy route that had survived three years of full-scale war between the neighbours.
Campaigners have argued the EU is undermining its support for Ukraine and its own climate goals by continuing to pay Russia for fuels that spew planet-heating particles when burned. Since the war, the EU has cut demand for energy and loosened rules to build wind turbines and solar panels, but scientists say it is still not cleaning its economy as fast as it should to keep the planet from heating 1.5C (2.7F) by the end of the century.
