Can we replace Russian gas?
Faced with its gas needs, Europeans are looking to establish agreements with Qatar. To what extent can Europe increase its imports from Qatar?
Until 2020, Russia supplied 40% of European gas consumption, i.e. 200 billion cubic meters imported for 500 billion consumed.
The gradual cessation of exports decided by Russia forces Europe to find alternatives. First of all, it should be noted that European natural gas production is very low and is tending to decrease. In addition to Russia, Norway and Algeria have long been important suppliers of natural gas to Europe. More recently, Europe also imports natural gas from Nigeria, Qatar and the United States.
Replacing 200 billion cubic meters of gas (Russian imports now stopped) with other sources of gas on the international market is impossible, and European countries are forced to turn to traditional suppliers - other than Russia - and ask them to increase their exports.
Norway and Algeria, traditional suppliers, can only increase their exports to a limited extent. It is therefore necessary to turn to other suppliers
The additional supplies, which will not be able to compensate for the missing Russian exports in the immediate future, will mainly be provided by LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas), primarily from the United States, Qatar and even new African producers (in particular Senegal and Mauritania)
Qatar already supplies LNG to Europe. With huge gas reserves, the emirate recently decided to increase its production capacity from 80 to 110 and then 127 million tons of LNG before the end of the decade. But Asia remains a preferred destination and the additional quantities will only be available in a few years. It is likely that a large fraction of Europe's new natural gas imports will have to come from the United States.
Algeria wants to double its gas exports, after a record year in 2022. Europe is already the first customer of Algeria. Is it wise to increase our dependence on a country with which our relations, especially the French, are sometimes difficult?
Algeria was the first country to export natural gas to Europe (starting with France) in the early 1960s (exports by LNG from Arzew). For more than 60 years, Algeria has been an important supplier to France and Europe. Recent visits by the French President and Prime Minister have shown the importance of the relationship between France and Algeria.
However, Algeria's natural gas reserves are only slightly increasing and domestic consumption, which is largely subsidized to help Algerian households, is constantly rising. The possibilities of increasing Algerian exports to France and Europe remain limited and out of all proportion to the quantities that would in principle be necessary to replace Russian exports.
What is the state of our current dependence on these two countries? To what extent could this increase?
European dependence on Qatar and Algeria will not increase significantly simply because of the limited capacity of these two countries to increase their exports to Europe very significantly. German initiatives to increase German imports from Qatar or Italian initiatives to increase Italian imports from Algeria will undoubtedly enable these European countries to improve their situation. They will not replace Russian imports.
To what extent do economic, energy and moral issues intermingle in the choices? With what consequences?
The priority for European countries is to cope with the cessation of Russian gas exports, which represented a significant fraction of energy consumption in Europe and which cannot be replaced quickly. The European Commission has taken a number of measures to deal with the situation arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Energy conservation, energy efficiency, accelerated development of renewable energies, search for new gas suppliers are among these measures.
To what extent are we replacing dependence on Russia with dependence on countries that also raise ethical questions?
The priority for Europe is to cope with a gas shortage that has resulted, as early as 2021, before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, in an explosion of gas prices, and more recently of electricity prices. This crisis could eventually be beneficial to European countries by accelerating the energy transition. For the time being, this crisis is heavily penalizing European consumers, whether they are individuals or small, medium or even large companies, with very serious economic and social consequences. For gas, it is likely that the United States will eventually become Europe's main supplier. The market mechanisms will make the fortune of American exporters who have benefited from the very high prices of natural gas for the past year.