Putin's gas threat has fizzled out

Pipeline From Russia to Europe

  A serious economic crisis or even deaths from the cold in Europe were feared if Russia were to turn off the gas supply in the wake of the Ukraine conflict with the West. Vladimir Putin had been building up this threat since last summer. But now, calculations show, Europe could get through the rest of the winter without Russian gas.

The immediate threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine has been averted, at least for the moment. Russia's president is sending the first soldiers from the units deployed at the border back to their garrisons. While Vladimir Putin is beginning to somewhat reduce his military threats, he has already largely lost another important means of exerting pressure in this conflict with the West, at least in the short term: with luck and with help from the USA, Europe survived this winter to such an extent that there was a Russian one Gas supply stop no longer needs to be feared, at least in the short term. Like calculations by the Brussels think tank Breugelshow, even in the event of unfavorable weather developments and a loss of all Russian supplies from the end of this month, gas reserves in Europe should be sufficient to cover the demand for this heating season.

      A possible delivery freeze by Russia, from which Europe buys around 40 percent of its natural gas, was until recently considered to be the worst possible consequence of an escalation in the Ukraine conflict and thus a means of exerting pressure on Moscow to avert Western sanctions. The US government, which has been warning of the EU's dependence on Russian gas for years, even feared fatalities and a comprehensive economic crisis in Europe should Russia turn off the gas tap.

      These fears were fueled by the fact that the Russian state monopoly Gazprom has been delivering noticeably little gas to Germany, for example, since last summer and, above all, did not fill up its European storage facilities at all before the heating season. This increased the risk of supply bottlenecks. Many observers in the West interpreted this behavior, which cannot be explained economically, as the build-up of a strategic threat potential in connection with the Ukraine conflict.

      However, although until recently Russia had only exported the contractual minimum quantities of gas to Europe, which were low compared to the delivery quantities of previous years, this potential threat has now largely fizzled out. According to the Breugel experts, the main contributors to this were the mild winter so far and therefore low gas consumption, as well as a sharp increase in LPG imports, especially from the USA. In the first six weeks of this year, more than 20 billion cubic meters of gas reached Europe by ship, twice as much as in the same period last year. Since the beginning of the year, Russia has delivered around 11.5 billion cubic meters, around 40 percent less than a year ago. Europe's gas storage facilities are still almost a third full, which corresponds to a good 360 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy.

long-term problem

      The experts have calculated three scenarios for the coming weeks and months: In the best-case scenario, Russia and the other gas suppliers will continue their deliveries as in the past few weeks, and gas consumption will remain at the average level of recent years. Then Europe's gas reserves should drop to around 340 TWh even in April, when the low point is usually reached in many countries at the end of the heating period.

      If, on the other hand, Russia stops supplying all of its supplies at the end of February, the gas stocks are likely to fall to around 160 TWh by April. If, in a worst-case scenario, a Russian delivery stop were accompanied by an extreme cold spell, there would probably be just a few TWh left. "With each passing day, the danger for this winter decreases," explains Breugel analyst Ben McWilliams.

      A Russian delivery stop would not be without consequences, even later. Without Russian gas, Europe would hardly be able to fill up its storage tanks again in the summer and secure the energy supply in the coming winter. Completely replacing imports from Russia with LPG is considered impossible, since the main producers in the USA and the Middle East are mostly tied to customers in Asia with long-term contracts