Germany has significantly increased its imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) through European ports, despite Berlin's ban on direct shipments of Russian fuel, according to Financial Times. The findings highlight the challenges of tracing Russian gas within the EU’s energy system as the bloc aims to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027.
German national energy company Sefe purchased 58 cargoes of Russian LNG via the French port of Dunkirk in 2023, a more than sixfold increase compared to the previous year, as reported by Belgian, German, and Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This comes despite Germany’s November 2023 directive to its state-operated import terminals to reject Russian LNG cargoes.
The report, compiled by groups including Bond Beter Leefmilieu, Deutsche Umwelthilfe, Urgewald, and Razom We Stand, estimates that Germany still receives between 3% and 9.2% of its gas supply from Russia, routed through other EU countries. Angelos Koutsis, energy policy officer at Bond Beter Leefmilieu, stated, “Germany has prohibited the import of Russian LNG at its ports. But imports officially sourced from France and Belgium are in fact partly composed of Russian LNG, effectively whitewashing the gas.”
The lack of transparency in the EU’s internal gas market has complicated efforts to track the origin of gas supplies. For instance, gas transported from Belgian ports is often labeled as “Belgian gas” in German databases, despite Belgium having no domestic gas production. This has led to “finger-pointing among member states, which has led to inaction against Russian LNG as no member state feels fully responsible,” the report noted.
Sefe, formerly owned by Gazprom and nationalized by Germany in 2022, declined to confirm or deny the report’s findings, citing a policy of not disclosing sales numbers. The company has a long-term contract with Russia’s Yamal LNG project, led by private energy group Novatek, and may have also purchased cargoes from traders.
Sefe stated, “Once delivered into the European gas network, the molecules cannot be tracked. It is therefore impossible to know where exactly the gas that gets delivered in Dunkirk ends up.”
In October 2023, France and nine other EU countries called for greater transparency, urging member states to publish data on suppliers importing Russian LNG and the volumes entering EU ports. However, tracking gas once it enters the EU’s internal market remains a challenge.
Independent gas analyst Tom Marzec-Manser explained, “It is once the gas, or regasified LNG, begins to travel within the internal market that it becomes especially difficult to untangle where the gas has commercially been delivered.”
