Europe should be searched for an alternative to Russian gas, despite the fact that it will not be able to abandon him, it is said in the article of the British magazine The Economist.
“Full refusal to Russian gas is too an ambitious task even in the long run. The continent imports the overwhelming majority of gas consumed and has only a limited number of alternatives. But there are opportunities to destroy Russia’s monopoly in states that are historically dependent on its gas, such as Bulgaria. and the Baltic countries, “the article says, the Russian” Vedomosti “quotes it.
In the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, there are large fuel reserves, Algeria in 2019 put 8% of the total gas in the market in Europe, Qatar – 5%, is noted in the article.
At the same time, the idea of replacing the Russian gas of American LNG edition calls costly. To reduce prices to the level of the Russian energy carrier, large investments in the shale industry will be required.
The European Union focused on the construction of a southern gas corridor – a gigantic energy project. One of his segment, transdritic pipeline, was put into operation in 2020. Currently, he can annually deliver 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe from the Azerbaijani Fine National deposit. This is a small part of the needs of the European Union, but on a small scale the project looks promising: in the future the construction of new segments, such as the Interconnector Greece – Bulgaria, will allow Bulgaria to provide 33% of domestic demand at the expense of gas from Azerbaijan, the article says.
There are other projects in the plans, including a gas pipeline of 1,900 kilometers long, which will connect Israel with Europe and allow it annually to supply 20 billion cubic meters of gas.