Europe without LNG?
European Union economies could run out of gas in 2023. The projected supply gap ranges from 25 to 49 billion cubic meters, but could still rise to 50-80 billion in the following years. This is the deficit that will be created after the suspension of gas supplies from Russia.
These are the conclusions of an energy market analysis conducted by the Jagiellonian University Institute. But is Europe in a no-win situation? Not necessarily. A condition is the diversification of supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is also used in truck propulsion. It will also not do without drastic savings of, “blue fuel”.
In view of the possible continuation of demand-supply tensions in the gas market in the coming years, an important element to balance the market and reduce prices will be energy conservation and the development of measures and methods to effectively manage the demand of gas consumers. With demand reduction measures in place, the supply gap in the EU may not occur at all or be much smaller than it would be without energy conservation measures, comments Marcin Roszkowski, president of the Jagiellonian Institute.
According to Kamil Moskwik, a member of IJ’s board of directors, much depends on the availability of LNG on the global market, as well as the removal of “bottlenecks” in the EU’s transmission system, which hinders the supply of large volumes of gas from Spain to the east and from Italy to the north of the continent. Becoming independent of Russian supplies, as envisioned by the European Commission’s plan called REPowerEU, may prove very difficult, and full stabilization will have to wait up to 5-6 years.
