Belgium leads EU buyers as Russian LNG sales to the bloc jump 57%

The EU bought €809mn of Russian liquefied natural gas in June, 57% more than a year earlier, with Belgium the single biggest buyer.

That gave Russia 24.1% of the EU's LNG market by value, second only to the US on 54.3% and €1.83bn. Belgium took €268mn worth, its highest since July 2025, ahead of France on €258mn and Spain on €201mn. Belgium also overtook France and Hungary to become the biggest buyer of Russian gas of any kind, TASS reported, citing its own calculations on Eurostat data.

The bloc imported a further €542mn of Russian pipeline gas in June, 12.5% of the value of all its pipeline gas imports. Norway led that market on 33.3%, followed by Algeria on 23.6% and the UK on 18.8%. TurkStream is now the only route still carrying Russian pipeline gas into Europe.

Hungary remains the largest EU buyer of that pipeline gas, spending €1.3bn in the first half, down 12.5% year on year, followed by Bulgaria on €704mn and Greece on €539mn. Across the bloc the pipeline bill came to €2.9bn in 1H26 against €3.2bn a year earlier. In June alone Hungary bought €218mn of it, Bulgaria €143mn, Slovakia €113mn and Greece €67mn.

Europe's Russian LNG purchases reached €4.5bn over the first half, and total EU spending on Russian gas of all kinds fell 3.4% year on year to €7.4bn. By volume, Russian LNG deliveries in June came to 2.17bcm, up 10%, on figures from the Brussels think-tank Bruegel.

The EU has legislated Russian gas out of existence and is buying more of it than it was a year ago. Short-term LNG contracts have been banned since April 25, all LNG imports go on January 1 2027 and pipeline gas follows on September 30 2027. Volumes rising into those deadlines look less like weaning and more like stocking up while it is still legal.

That pattern has been building all summer. Belgium's Zeebrugge terminal is the bloc's main entry point for Russian cargoes and the country imported only Russian LNG in July; Europe as a whole bought the most Russian LNG in history just as the first bans took effect. Hungary has gone further and challenged the ban at the European Court of Justice. It all lands on a market already struggling to restock its storage ahead of winter.

Moscow has been threatening to walk first. President Vladimir Putin has said Russia could leave the European market on its own initiative rather than wait to be pushed out, and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russian companies would redirect part of their LNG to friendlier buyers including China, India, Thailand and the Philippines. Russia supplied Europe with 38bcm of gas in 2025, just over 20bcm of it as LNG.

Europe's ban dates are fixed. Its buying habits, on this month's numbers, are not.