EU Russian LNG imports up 17% this year as buyers load up before 2027 ban

EU Russian LNG imports up 17% this year as buyers load up before 2027 ban An IEEFA analyst told Montel European buyers will keep taking incremental Russian cargoes while imports stay legal, undercutting the bloc's diversification push. European buyers will keep importing incremental volumes of Russian LNG until a full ban takes effect in 2027, with purchases already up 17% so far this year despite the bloc's diversification drive, an analyst told Montel on Wednesday (2026-06-10). "While it's legal, we are going to see an increase in imports," Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said in an interview at a Baltic LNG event.⁵ The comment is awkward for a bloc that has spent four years cutting its dependence on Russian energy. Russian gas now accounts for just 18% of European imports, down from 45% in 2021, while Russian oil has fallen to 3% of the bloc's crude from around 30% over the same period.³ LNG is the line that has not bent.⁵ The money involved is substantial. EU countries paid Russia EUR 2.9bn for around 5.1m tonnes, or 6.9bcm, of LNG in the first quarter, environmental group Urgewald said on Friday (2026-05-15), up from 4.3m tonnes in the same period last year.¹ The bill is rising even as the political direction is meant to point the other way.¹ Most of those cargoes trace back to one terminal. Urgewald said 97% of all Yamal Arctic LNG deliveries in the first quarter of 2026 went to the EU, the project that anchors Russia's shipments into the Atlantic basin.¹ Europe remains the indispensable buyer for that flagship, which is why incremental volumes keep arriving while the rules still permit them.¹ The 2027 cut-off is firm in law but distant in trading terms. A Hungarian trader said LNG demand would grow in the coming year as Russian pipeline volumes decline next year under the EU's phase-out plan, and that once Russian deliveries stop in 2027, LNG would play a larger role in covering the gap.² The restrictions already on the books bite at the edges rather than the cargoes themselves. The EU adopted a ban on LNG terminal services for Russian companies on Thursday (2026-04-23), alongside a prohibition on maintenance for Russian LNG tankers and icebreakers.⁴ Those measures raise the cost and complexity of moving Russian gas. They do not yet stop the molecules from reaching European regas terminals.⁴ Russia's own numbers point to a project leaning hard on these European sales. Moscow now sees LNG exports edging up 3% this year to 35.7m tonnes, still below earlier projections, even as it cut its forecast for pipeline gas exports outside the former Soviet Union by 10.7% from 2024 to 72bcm.³ LNG is one of the few channels back into a market that pipeline gas has largely lost.³ For European gas pricing, the read-through is mixed. Continued Russian inflows are a marginal source of supply that the market would otherwise have to source elsewhere, which argues against a sharp tightening before 2027.⁵ A phase-out that lands on schedule removes a supply source the EU has not fully replaced, and the Hungarian trader's view is that the gap falls to LNG from elsewhere.² The near-term question is volume, not legality. With imports already 17% higher this year and Yamal still pointed almost entirely at Europe, the signal for the back half of 2026 is whether quarterly tonnage keeps climbing or whether terminal-service restrictions and tighter shipping rules begin to bite before the formal ban does.^5,1⁴