Equinor of Norway will maintain maximum natural gas production rates throughout the spring and summer to assist the European Union in filling up its gas storage facilities, the company’s CEO stated this week.
The vow comes amid persistent anxiety about gas supply as the year progresses into the hot months when storage is generally replenished for the high-demand period of winter. Last year, much of Europe failed to ensure that it had adequate gas for the winter, resulting in the gas crisis, oilprice.com writes.
In a statement for Bloomberg this week, Equinor’s CEO Anders Opedal said that Norway has always been a solid partner for Europe and would continue to sell as much gas as feasible to the continent. The issue for Europe is that what is feasible is less than half of what is required. In fact, far less.
In the first half of last year, the EU bought 46.8 percent of its natural gas from Russia, according to Eurostat. Norway, for its part, accounted for 20.5 percent of natural gas imports during that time period, which was less than half of what Russia delivered to the EU.
According to Bruegel, a European economic research think tank, Norway will export more than 2.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas per week to the EU by late 2021. This compares to Russia’s little more than 2.3 billion cubic meters. During the first half of the year, however, Gazprom maintained weekly flows above 3 billion cubic meters, whereas Norway never did.
The issue exposes the EU’s most serious challenge with gas supply security. For years, it has been too dependent on Russia, which has produced complacency and the belief that, whatever happens, Russia would continue to export gas to Europe.
Russia agrees, but recent events involving gas pricing and Ukraine have spooked European governments, which are now scrambling to find other supplies in case they are required.
The mission is proving to be more difficult than they anticipated.
Norway can probably keep pumping at full capacity for a bit longer, but it will have to halt for maintenance at some time. Nonetheless, Norway definitely cannot cover the whole quantity of gas that Russia now sends to Europe. Furthermore, it will be unable to meet the increased demand created by Germany’s closure of coal and nuclear power facilities.