The Netherlands is planning a complete withdrawal from Russian liquefied gas

The government of the Netherlands intends to completely stop the import of liquefied gas from Russia. This was reported by the Minister of Energy of the country, Rob Yetten. Since the beginning of this year, the Netherlands has not signed a single new contract with Russian suppliers, and is now working on finalizing existing contracts.

Yetten said that the country should do everything possible to abandon energy sources from Russia. According to him, the Netherlands has already given up Russian coal, oil and pipeline gas. Now the government is negotiating with local companies about import substitution of liquefied gas.

As noted by the Bloomberg agency, Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to an energy crisis in Europe. He was influenced both by the sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union, and by Gazprom’s refusal to supply gas through pipelines under sanction conditions, and then by the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. In these conditions, many European countries bet on liquefied gas, which will be purchased both from Qatar and the USA, and from Russia. But recently they have decided to break even these ties with Moscow.

The largest European buyer of liquefied gas from Russia was Spain. This year, the country’s government recommended that companies no longer conclude contracts for supplies from Russia.

The Netherlands bought Russian liquefied gas not only for its own consumption, but also for transit to other European countries. Russian supplies accounted for about 15% of the country’s total gas imports.

Now, according to Bloomberg, only one state of the European Union – Hungary – continues to make full gas purchases from Russia.