{"id":5933,"date":"2015-02-23T15:33:53","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T20:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5933"},"modified":"2015-02-23T15:33:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T20:33:53","slug":"is-the-eu-finally-breaking-free-of-russias-energy-grip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5933","title":{"rendered":"Is The EU Finally Breaking Free Of Russia\u2019s Energy Grip?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is The EU Finally Breaking Free Of Russia\u2019s Energy Grip?<\/a><\/h3>\n

Gazprom\u2019s dominance over European energy supplies may be beginning to slip.<\/p>\n

The collapse of oil prices has punished Gazprom\u2019s revenues, but in a new development that is further damaging to the Russian state-owned company, the European Union is also beginning to shake itself of Russian gas.<\/p>\n

Russian exports of natural gas through the Nord Stream pipeline \u2013 which runs from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea \u2013 have dropped by more than half in February from the same period last year, according to\u00a0Reuters<\/a>. Average daily deliveries have declined from 98 million cubic meters to 45 million cubic meters.<\/p>\n

For 2014 on the whole, the European Union\u00a0reduced<\/a>\u00a0Russian gas imports by 9 percent, the fourth consecutive year of declines.<\/p>\n

There are several reasons for this. First, the European economy is growing slowly, if at all. That keeps a lid on natural gas consumption. Second, the 28-member bloc is actually making substantial\u00a0progress<\/a>\u00a0on energy efficiency. Third, Europe has experienced a mild winter, lessening demand for natural gas supplies.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0Moscow Slings Insults Following Canadian Sanctions<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

But the EU is also finding other sources of energy. Last year Lithuania began importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Norway, a development that has diminished Gazprom\u2019s grip over the small Baltic country. Lithuania has even been willing to pay a 10 percent\u00a0premium<\/a>\u00a0for Norwegian gas \u2013 a rate that Lithuanian officials noted was still less than what they paid for Russian gas in the past. \u201cFrom now until forever, our access to LNG puts a cap on what Gazprom can charge us,\u201d Lithuania\u2019s energy minister Rokas Masiulis said in a\u00a0Reuters<\/a>\u00a0interview in November 2014.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is The EU Finally Breaking Free Of Russia\u2019s Energy Grip? Gazprom\u2019s dominance over European energy supplies may be beginning to slip. The collapse of oil prices has punished Gazprom\u2019s revenues, but in a new development that is further damaging to the Russian state-owned company, the European Union is also beginning to shake itself of Russian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[263,279,284,352,1190,1775,694],"class_list":["post-5933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-energy","tag-eu","tag-european-union","tag-gazprom","tag-lng","tag-oil-price-collapse","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5934,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5933\/revisions\/5934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}