MOSCOW — Russia’s deputy prime minister says European consumers will pay the price of the EU’s ban on Russian gas imports, and that a shortage will follow. Alexander Novak made the case in an interview with Vesti that TASS published on Sunday.
Novak said there is “currently no way to cover the deficit,” with the Strait of Hormuz closed and the plant in Qatar halted as a result of March attacks. European politicians, he said, are “shooting themselves in the foot if they ban supplies, including those from Russia.”
The date at issue is January 1. Novak called the ban on LNG supplies starting then “very surprising” because “today the European market is unbalanced,” adding that “the deficit is significant.” Euronews has reported that the EU’s full ban on Russian LNG under eligible existing long-term contracts is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027.
TASS quoted him calling gas storage reserves “much lower” and saying he believes they are 10 percent lower than the average for this period in previous years.
IEEFA, which Euronews described as a think tank, counts differently. It put EU storage at about 72.4% full on October 3, emptier than at this stage of any autumn since 2011, Euronews reported. The EU could have to curb gas consumption by 7% this winter, IEEFA warned, a figure Euronews tied to the storage shortfall combined with the Russian LNG ban from January 2027. The report added that “this does not mean EU gas storage will run dry this winter.”
Novak also said 12 million tons of LNG were supplied to Europe over the past nine months, “even more than last year,” and he read it as European buyers wanting to “fill up faster and buy more LNG before January 1, 2027.” On October 9, according to Euronews, the campaign group Urgewald, using Kpler data, counted a record 12.18 million tonnes of LNG from Russia’s Arctic energy project reaching European ports between January and September.
How large the deficit really is, and whether anyone in Brussels will move the January 1 date, remain open. TEH had not found a response from the European Commission to Novak’s remarks by Sunday morning.
