Last week, a meeting was held organized by the Oxford Institute for Energy Research, at which experts tried to determine whether Russia will again become the main supplier of gas to the European Union. Analysts' opinions were divided. Until February 2022, the beginning of the special operation in Ukraine, Russia supplied Europe with approximately 40% of the gas it consumed. Experts note that the «energy bridge», which was built for decades, withstood the most difficult periods of the Cold War, as well as the collapse of the USSR and the liberalization of European energy markets. Now, according to forecasts, by 2023 the share of gas from Russia in Europe will decrease to less than 10%. However, the current realities are such that the expectations of European politicians that Europe will not return to Russian gas may not come true, since European countries still need cheap gas. «Today Berlin pays €140 ($180) per megawatt-hour for gas imports, which is about seven times more than the average from 2010 to 2020. To reassure its consumers and companies, Germany is spending billions on subsidies,» Bloomberg said. And if Europe plans to maintain its competitiveness in the chemical, food and heavy industries, it needs cheap gas. And today, Russian «blue fuel» is the cheapest type of raw material for European countries. At the same time, the Russian side stated that Russia has all the conditions to become the main supplier of gas to Europe again, but until the extreme politicization of the gas sector by the West is gone, this is impossible.
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