EU Companies To Keep Buying Russian LNG Unless Explicitly Banned - Think Tank

European companies will continue buying Russia's liquefied natural gas unless the European Union explicitly tells them not to, Laury Haytayan, Middle East and North Africa Director at the New York-based think tank Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th December, 2022) European companies will continue buying Russia's liquefied natural gas unless the European Union explicitly tells them not to, Laury Haytayan, middle East and North Africa Director at the New York-based think tank Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Sputnik.

"The EU is buying LNG available in the market regardless of the source. If the Russian LNG doesn't go under any sanctions, some companies will keep buying it," Haytayan said.

EU nations banned the sale of Russian oil to the bloc from December and vowed to invest more in the green energy transition. They agreed that a blanket ban on Russian gas would only lead to increased competition and higher LNG prices.

Instead, they said the price of all gas exports to the EU would be capped at 180 Euros ($191) per megawatt-hour.

Haytayan predicted that the EU would not go back to buying most of its gas from Russia as it seeks to shift to hydrogen and other clean energy sources. But he said that the impact of the EU's gas price cap on the market and global LNG flows was hard to predict.

"Let's see if the mechanism is launched what the effect will be. But today Europe is relying on LNG which is coming mainly from the US, a sector run by the private sector that doesn't follow politics, it follows the money," the expert said.