ByIrina Slav– Apr 15, 2025, 4:15 AM CDT
The European Union is looking for legal ways to tear long-term natural gas supply contracts with Russia’s Gazprom without having to pay sizable penalties, the Financial Times has reported, citing three officials from the European Commission as saying the leading option was declaring a force majeure.
“If the whole idea is not paying Russia, then [paying compensation] would undermine the whole purpose,” one of these officials, who were not named, told the FT.
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The European Union has found it quite difficult to stop importing Russian gas. While pipeline gas flows have been decimated, especially after the bombing of the Nord Stream and the expiry of the transit deal with Ukraine, LNG imports from Russia have soared, despite EU officials’ efforts to reduce them and eventually stop importing any Russian hydrocarbons into the bloc.
The FT report comes as business leaders in Europe begin to hint at not being opposed to actually boosting Russian gas supply to the continent. Reuters cited several executives this week as making suggestions to that effect.
“If there is a reasonable peace in Ukraine, we could go back to flows of 60 billion cubic metres, maybe 70, annually, including LNG,” Engie executive vice president Didier Holleaux told the publication.
“Europe will never go back to importing 150 billion cubic meters from Russia like before the war … but I would bet maybe 70 bcm,” TotalEnergies’ chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said. He also said, “We need to diversify, many routes, not over-rely on one or two,” suggesting the EU’s celebration of U.S. LNG coming to replace Russian pipeline gas was indeed rather premature.
“Reopening pipelines would reduce prices more than any current subsidy programmes,” the head of one of Germany’s largest chemical hubs told Reuters, referring to the Russian pipelines. “It’s a taboo topic,” Christof Guenther added, noting that a lot of fellow executives agreed that a return to cheap Russian gas was urgently needed.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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