In the first quarter of this year, the import of energy raw materials to the European Union decreased by 26.4 percent to 95.5 billion. Eurostat reported.
A total of 183.8 million were imported into the EU. tons of raw materials, or 10.4 percent less than a year ago during the same period.
The value of imported natural gas in the gaseous state in the first quarter of 2024 decreased by 56.8 percent compared to the same quarter in 2023, and volumes fell by almost twelve percent. A similar trend was observed in the case of liquefied gas – the value of imports decreased sharply (-54.1 percent), while the volume decreased more modestly (-11.4 percent).
Eurostat reports that the significant drop in value reflects the decline in natural gas prices after their spike in 2022, and the drop in volume should be seen in the light of the EU's reduction plan, under which EU countries have pledged to limit gas consumption by at least 15 percent.
On the other hand, both crude oil import value and import volumes remained stable compared to the first quarter of 2023 (value increased by 0.4 percent and volumes decreased by 0.9 percent). Eurostat reports that in the first quarter of this year, the most oil was imported into the European Union from the USA (17.1 percent), Norway (13.6 percent) and Kazakhstan (10.9 percent).
Meanwhile, almost half of natural gas in gaseous form was obtained from Norway (46.6 percent). Algeria came in second with 19.7 percent, followed by Russia with 17.3 percent. The United States supplied almost half of the liquefied natural gas to the European Union (47.4 percent), followed by Russia (17.7 percent) and Algeria (9.9 percent).
