FSUOGM: Netherlands urges more sanctions on Russian LNG

The Netherlands has called for more sanctions to restrict Russian LNG imports into the EU, noting an increase in the volume of Russian super-cooled gas arriving on its own shores in recent months.

Russian LNG imports at the GATE terminal, situated at Europe’s largest port of Rotterdam and the Netherlands’ biggest regasification facility, rose in the third quarter of this year, with the number of Russian carriers docking there doubling to two per month, the Dutch government said.

This could be a side-effect of the new EU sanctions that came into force this summer, the government said. Those sanctions prevent Russian LNG transshipments but not imports into the EU. As a result, this likely led to more Russian LNG arriving at terminals with sufficient capacity for EU imports, Dutch Energy Minister Sophie Hermans wrote in a letter to Parliament.

The GATE terminal in Rotterdam has a current regasification capacity of 16bn cubic metres per year, but an expansion is underway to raise this to 20 bcm by 2026.

"We want to responsibly cut Russian gas imports and this development is therefore worrying and undesirable," Hermans said. "A common European approach is crucial," Hermans wrote.

She added that she would raise the prospect of additional sanctions against Russia when EU energy ministers next meet on October 15, in order to get the topic included on the agenda of the council of government leaders. She is also waiting on the European Commission to provide clarity in the next few months on how member states can introduce their own measures against Russian LNG.

The Netherlands relies on LNG imports along with Norwegian pipeline gas to cover the shortfall in its own supply versus demand. This shortfall has steadily grown in recent years as a result of the phased shutdown of the giant, earthquake-causing Groningen field, which finally ceased production completely at the end of last year. Until 2022, the Netherlands also used to import significant quantities of Russian pipeline gas, but Russia’s Gazprom cut supplies after the Dutch government refused to pay for them in rubles.

Just as Russia has managed to circumvent Western sanctions on its oil exports by amassing a dark fleet of oil tankers, it is now acquiring shadow carriers to get around restrictions on its LNG exports. However, owing to very different conditions in LNG shipping, Moscow will have greater difficulty in masking this trade, as it will face a lot more scrutiny.

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