The European Union will receive natural gas supplies that may have Russian gas mixed in, Czech energy minister Jozef Sikela told Bloomberg.
Sikela has been tapped by the Czech government to be its member of the European Commission, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been said to already chosen Sikela to head the energy portfolio for the bloc.
Due to contractual obligations, several eastern European states have continued to buy natural gas from Russia via a pipeline that crosses Ukraine despite the bloc’s efforts to distance itself from Russian energy supplies. But those obligations are set to end this year, resulting in what many would assume would be a clean break for Russian natural gas flows into EU countries.
The reality, however, could be much different, Sikela warned, with one alternate gas supplier for those eastern countries being Azerbaijan—a supplier that would make it tricky to prove the origin of the purchased gas.
“We need to avoid a situation when we purchase gas that is formally non-Russian, but which could be swapped for Russian gas en route, undermining our efforts to reduce dependency on Russian supplies,” Sikela warned.
Russian natural gas pipeline exports to Europe declined by 2% in August compared to both August last year and July 2024, Reuters estimates revealed earlier this week.
In August, gas giant Gazprom’s average daily pipeline shipments to Europe fell to 89.6 million cubic meters, down by 2% month-on-month and down by 2.3% from August 2023, per the Reuters calculations based on data from European gas transmission group Entsog and Gazprom’s daily reports on gas transit via Ukraine.
Before the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia supplied around one-third of all the gas to Europe and was the single biggest supplier.
Norway has now replaced Russia and has become the top supplier of gas to Europe.