MOSCOW:
Russian fuel provides to Europe through Ukraine are set to finish on New 12 months’s Day, bringing down the curtain on Moscow’s lengthy interval of dominance of provide within the European fuel market. Russia’s oldest fuel export path to Europe – a pipeline relationship again to Soviet days – was set to close on the finish of 2024, as a five-year transit deal between Russia and Ukraine expires.
Information from Ukraine’s fuel transit operator confirmed on Tuesday that Russia had not requested any fuel flows for Jan 1. The European Union drastically lowered its dependency on Russian fuel after the outbreak of the battle in Ukraine in February 2022 by looking for various fuel sources. The remaining consumers of Russian fuel similar to Slovakia and Austria have organized for various provides, and analysts foresee minimal market influence from the stoppage.
European benchmark fuel costs settled at 48.50 euros per megawatt hour on Tuesday, solely marginally up from opening commerce. Stopping the fuel movement may have a a lot greater geopolitical significance, nevertheless. Moscow has misplaced its dominant share of fuel provides to nations within the European Union to rivals similar to america, Qatar and Norway because it invaded Ukraine, which prompted the EU to chop its dependence on Russian fuel.
As soon as the world’s largest fuel exporter, state-controlled Gazprom recorded a $7 billion loss in 2023 alone, its first annual loss since 1999. For Europe, the lack of low cost Russian fuel provides contributed to a serious financial slowdown, a spike in inflation and the worsening of a cost-of-living disaster