25% cut in the supply of Russian gas to Greece

By Haris Fludopoulos

At a time when the whole of Europe is living with the uncertainty of the continuation or not of the supply of Russian natural gas, Greece, as shown by the official market data from the gas system manager DESFA, can look to the future with more optimism. And this is because, according to the administrator’s data, there is a clear decrease in the supply of Russian gas, at the same time as imports of liquefied natural gas LNG are experiencing a rapid increase.

More specifically, according to DESFA’s official data for the first half of the year, gas imports from the Sidirokastro station, from where Russian natural gas is imported through the Turkstream pipeline, fell to 13,334 TWh compared to 16,901 TWh in the same period last year. This reduction of 3,567 TWh in percentage corresponds to 21.1%. As a percentage of total natural gas imports, this year Russian gas represents 34.25%, when last year in the same period it represented 46.1% of our country’s total gas supply mix.

At the same time, a significant increase in imports of liquefied natural gas from the station of Agia Triada (Revythoussa) is recorded. Thus, this year in the first six months of the year, 17,325 TWh of LNG were imported, when last year in the same period only 11,762 TWh had been imported. In other words, compared to last year, there is an increase of 47.29%. LNG imports correspond to 44.5% of total gas imports in Greece, when last year in the same period LNG imports corresponded to 32% of total imports.

Encouraging for the country’s energy security and strengthening the diversification of energy supply is the fact that there is a 13.43% increase in natural gas imports through the TAP pipeline from the Nea Mesimvria station. Specifically, in the first half of this year, 7,474 TWh were imported compared to 6,589 TWh last year.

39 LNG cargoes

Regarding LNG imports, it is worth noting that a total of 39 tankers transporting liquefied natural gas arrived in Revythoussa. The largest quantities, 9.79T Wh, came from the USA (an increase of 139.07% compared to last year), followed by loads from Algeria (2.47 TWh, with a decrease of 28.36% compared to last year), loads from Egypt (2.01 TWh, with an increase of 116.39% compared to last year). Also imported were 1.2 TWh of LNG from Nigeria, 1.03 TWh from Oman and 0.11 TWh from Indonesia.

Demand

At the same time that in terms of natural gas imports there is a strong movement and differentiation of the data, at the level of demand the reins of consumption continue to be held by the power producers, who consumed 20.396 TWh or otherwise 1.762 billion cubic meters, with a marginal decrease of 0.15 % compared to 2021.

In the distribution network, i.e. residential and smaller professional consumers of natural gas, an increase of 8.49% was recorded to 8.28 TWh or otherwise to 0.713 billion cubic meters.

On the contrary, a significant decline of 71.05%, mainly due to the increased prices that make the fuel uncompetitive, is recorded in the consumption of natural gas by industry. In particular, the industry consumed only 1.670 TWh or 0.145 billion cubic meters of natural gas during the first half of the year.