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Paris has called for companies shipping Russian gas to be better identified at EU ports in an effort to stop an increase of Russian fossil fuels coming into the bloc.
France, along with nine other countries including Austria and the Czech Republic, circulated a paper ahead of an EU energy ministers’ meeting on Tuesday calling for the European Commission to require suppliers of Russian liquefied natural gas to identify themselves clearly when cargoes are unloaded at EU ports and to improve transparency on the volume of imports.
Some gas suppliers that booked capacity to import Russian LNG at EU ports “are currently not properly identified”, the paper said.
French energy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said on Tuesday that the “highest level of transparency regarding flows of [LNG]” was needed to “remove this dependency”.
Gas imports from Russia increased 11 per cent year on year in the first half of 2024, according to data from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, despite EU efforts to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels.
France and its partners said that some gas importers had booked capacity to import Russian LNG at EU ports “but these natural gas suppliers are currently not properly identified”.
France, Spain and Belgium accounted for 87 per cent of Europe’s Russian LNG imports during that period, with imports to France more than doubling, while those to Belgium decreased 16 per cent, the IEEFA said.
Belgium, which has long called for EU sanctions on Russian LNG, said In a separate paper to be presented on Tuesday that it was already working on a mechanism to trace the origin of LNG, “making it possible to track and restrict Russian LNG molecules if necessary”.
Once imported into the EU, the final destination of gas is hard to trace as it is often mixed with gas from other sources and subject to commercially sensitive contracts.
Belgium said that an EU country receiving Russian gas shipped into Belgian ports “must confirm the necessity of the shipment for its energy supply” and called on the commission to co-ordinate the effort.
Efforts to reduce flows of Russian fuels into the bloc have been hindered by Hungary, which has consistently resisted sanctions and sought to extend existing deals it has with the Russian gas major Gazprom.
Last Thursday, Budapest signed a deal with Gazprom to continue flows of Russian gas through the Turkish pipeline route.
Gas from Russia also reaches the EU through Ukraine — despite the war — thanks to a contract that is due to expire at the end of this year.
Discussions over the extension of that contract were “a very sensitive issue”, a senior European official said. “We need to recognise the fact that Ukraine is getting revenue from transit.”
Sven Giegold, Germany’s state secretary for economic affairs and climate action, said that it was “worrying” to see the uptick in Russian fuel imports and that the commission should present “a road map . . . to bring imports from Russia in all fuels down to zero”.
The concern comes after the EU took a first step towards restricting Russian LNG by sanctioning transshipments — re-exports of Russian fuel to third countries — from EU ports in June.
EU countries including the Netherlands have raised concerns that the ban has had the unwanted side effect of increasing shipments into the EU as they can no longer be re-exported elsewhere, even though the ban only officially comes into force in March next year.
TotalEnergies, the French energy group and an importer of Russian LNG, said it “continues to supply Europe with [imports from Russia’s] Yamal LNG plant, under the long-term contracts that TotalEnergies is legally bound to honour . . . These “take or pay” contracts cannot be suspended unless specific government sanctions are imposed”.
