Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU has had remarkable success in slashing its reliance on natural gas piped in from Russia. Partly this has been by switching sources and reducing demand, and partly by increasing imports of liquefied natural gas. Some of the latter, however, still come from Russia, whose LNG imports to the EU have actually increased; Moscow made an estimated €8.2bn from such sales last year — vital funding for its war. The bloc is now proposing limited restrictions on Russia’s liquefied gas, the first time it has targeted Moscow’s gas trade with sanctions. It should go further, and ban Russian LNG after a cut-off date.Such a radical redrawing of EU energy supplies seemed barely imaginable in 2022.

But co-ordinated policy measures, surging prices, and Russian supply interruptions followed by explosions that blew up the subsea Nord Stream pipelines led to huge shifts. The proportion of EU gas imports accounted for by Russia dropped from 46 per cent in 2021 to 16 per cent last year. LNG from suppliers including the US and Qatar doubled its share of the bloc’s gas imports — making the EU the world’s largest LNG importer ahead of China and Japan. Helped by mild winters, gas prices have dropped back towards pre-crisis levels.

But Russian LNG exports to the EU reached about 20bn cubic metres in both of the past two years, up more a third from 14.6bcm in 2021. Some of that is trans-shipped via EU ports to China, India and Turkey. But the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a think-tank, says a little under 16bcm went to EU buyers including France, Spain and Belgium, which send some of it on to Germany, Italy and others.