It is currently “impossible” for Europe to do without Russia’s gas and oil. This is what Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said on the day of his meeting with the United Russia parliamentary group, the Kremlin party. If the West rejects crude oil from northern Siberia and the Russian Arctic, oil prices could reach $300 a barrel: a threat that Novak says makes it “unlikely” that Europe will immediately reduce its energy dependency on Moscow. And while the deputy prime minister then reassured the West by declaring that Russia has no intention of cutting back oil production, he does not hide the fact that it will try to diversify its supply routes.
Russia shifts crude oil flows to the east
While Russian oil companies have already started to divert oil flows east, Moscow and Kazakhstan have decided to set up a working group to increase oil transit to China via the Central Asian country. As Tass reports, Novak reminded that the transit contract for Russian oil via Kazakhstan to Beijing was recently extended; and before the United Russia deputies, he pointed out that the issue of diversification of hydrocarbon exports to the AsiaPacific region “is really topical as preparations are made for a new package of measures” by the West, the fifth . In fact, the United States and the United Kingdom have already announced a veto on oil imports from Russia, but Novak has minimized the impact of this, noting that “in the UK we generally have no exports and compared to the United States we only have 3 % of our crude oil exports and 7% of hydrocarbon exports delivered ».
The situation of Italy
If Novak speaks, he’s on the safe side. The historic energy weakness of Europe and Italy is a fact. As Stefano Agnoli wrote in Corriere della Sera, the former is about 55% dependent on imports and over the ten years 201020 the proportion has even increased, while the latter slightly decreased it over the same period, but remained around 75%. As for Italy, 40% of the natural gas that covers 40% of Italy’s energy needs comes from Russia. Oil, on the other hand, accounts for another third, 10% of which is Russian production. Then there is coal, which in Italy covers only 3.3% of national needs, but almost 60% of which always comes from Moscow. Here is the complete infographic with the map of Italy’s energy addiction.
Dependence on Russia, an ageold problem
Already in 2014, with the annexation of Crimea and the triggering of the war in Donbass, Europeans had to understand that Vladimir Putin is not a partner like any other. Federico Fubini explained it well: his role is not just that of a commercial supplier, for he has a hostile and unpredictable political agenda. In short, it would have been natural to look for alternative ways to meet our energy needs and instead Europe has increased its dependence on Russia. But if Moscow decided to turn off the taps, the impact would not be the same for everyone.
Germany and Italy are the most vulnerable countries
As highlighted by Milena Gabanelli and Stefano Agnoli
, Denmark, Great Britain, Belgium, Spain and Portugal must not be affected by a delivery cut decided by Moscow. And if the eastern countries would have problems switching to alternative sources, since they are almost completely dependent on imports from Russia, for France, which has focused on nuclear energy, the dependence on Russian gas is very small (less than 8 billion cubic meters, 17 % of imports). Indeed, President Emmanuel Macron has declared that his country could be the first major nation to break free from gas and oil dependency by building six new nuclear reactors and 50 offshore wind farms by 2050. In short, if Moscow shuts the taps, the highest price ever would be paid by Germany and Italy (the first being dependent on 51% of its imports with 43 billion cubic meters, the second with 29 billion cubic meters or 40% of total gas imports).
Eliminate Russian imports by 2024?
So it is obvious that replacing 155 billion cubic meters of gas overnight is impossible. Although Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, guest on March 13 of the Half Hour More program led by Lucia Annunziata, said he was certain that “in two months we will be able to halve our dependence on Russian gas and we will no longer be dependent on any new blackmail “. This thanks to the fact that “Italy is building new partnerships, particularly with Algeria, Angola, Qatar and Congo: in these countries we have the willingness of local authorities to increase the volumes of gas we import “. In reality, the goal expressed by Draghi at the meeting with Ursola von der Leyen in Brussels on March 7th is to stop our imports within two years. A goal that seems really ambitious. Especially compared to France , which, as I said, much better than we said, through the mouth of Prime Minister Jean Castex, has declared that it will stop its imports of Russian gas and oil by 2027, which e in a time horizon twice as long is longer than Italy had hoped.