Europe says it wants to ditch Russian LNG — so why did imports hit a record high last year?
What happened?
In 2024, Russia exported a record volume of liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to calculations by RBC based on data from the analytics firm Kpler. The country shipped 33.6 million tons abroad last year, an increase of four percent from 2023 and two percent more than in 2022, when the previous record of 32.9 million tons was set. December 2024 also saw the highest monthly exports on record, reaching 3.25 million tons — 1.3 percent more than in December 2023, when exports totaled 3.21 million tons.
More than half — 52 percent — of Russia’s LNG exports last year went to Europe, a four percent increase from 2023. The region’s largest buyers were France (6.3 million tons), Spain (4.8 million), Belgium (4.4 million), and the Netherlands (1.3 million). A significant share of these shipments was re-exported to other E.U. countries, including Germany, which, despite banning direct Russian LNG deliveries to its ports, purchased a record volume in 2024 via France.
Why isn’t Europe cutting off Russian LNG?
Because, at the moment, there is simply no real alternative. As Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, has noted, there’s no surplus on the global LNG market. Meanwhile, since early 2025, Europe has lost 15 billion cubic meters of gas from its energy supply following the halt of Russian transit through Ukraine.
The United States may eventually help fill the gap. Two new LNG production lines under construction there are expected to produce 27 million tons annually — the equivalent of 36 billion cubic meters of gas. But for now, Europe has little choice but to buy Russian LNG at record levels, a trend that only accelerated in January.
That doesn’t mean the E.U. has abandoned plans to phase out Russian imports. In 2024, it imposed its first sanctions on Russian LNG. These involved banning re-exports of raw materials (a move analysts saw as primarily aimed at securing domestic supply) and investments in Russian LNG projects, limiting Russian suppliers’ access to port infrastructure, and imposing restrictions on part of the LNG fleet operated by Novatek, one of Russia’s largest producers.
According to Bloomberg’s sources, E.U. member states are now debating a full ban on Russian energy imports, including LNG, by 2027. But negotiations have been difficult. The release of a phased exit plan, originally expected in late February, has been postponed to March 26. As with pipeline gas, all 27 E.U. countries are struggling to reach a consensus, given their varying levels of dependence on Russian fuel.
Does that mean Russia’s LNG shipments to Europe won’t decrease in 2025?
Experts surveyed by RBC say E.U. countries will likely struggle to significantly reduce their imports of Russian liquefied natural gas this year. Analysts at the Finam financial group estimate that the region won’t be ready to phase out Russian LNG for at least another year and a half, citing an expected sharp decline in underground gas storage reserves by the end of the 2024–2025 heating season compared with the previous year.
At the same time, U.S. sanctions could affect Russian exports. In January, the Biden administration’s final sanctions package targeted two major Russian LNG enterprises serving the European market — the Gazprom-controlled LNG Portovaya and Novatek-controlled Cryogas-Vysotsk. A year earlier, U.S. sanctions were imposed on another Novatek project, Arctic LNG 2, which in 2024 faced challenges in arranging deliveries to foreign buyers.
Given that U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to tighten sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas sector if the Kremlin refuses a peace deal with Ukraine, it’s difficult to make reliable forecasts about the future of Russian LNG exports. Still, Finam’s baseline forecast projects shipments rising to 35 million tons. The Institute for Energy and Finance also expects exports to increase by three percent compared with 2024 levels.