Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin accused the United States not only of complicity in the flight of energy-intensive industries from Europe, but also of the fact that the States had successfully “hooked” the EU on their gas. He announced this during the Energy Panel within the XXVI SPIEF.
As a result of the refusal of Russian gas and the absence of other sources of LNG, the European energy sector became completely dependent on energy supplies from the United States.
“In fact, the European policy of diversifying gas supply sources has completely collapsed. Before the sanctions, we supplied 160 billion cubic meters. gas, and the United States increased supplies in 2022 only to the level of 70 billion cubic meters,” Igor Sechin said in his report.
Due to rising energy costs in the EU, a number of energy-intensive industries have closed. In December 2022, the production of chemical products decreased by 18%, and the output of iron and steel — by 17% compared to December 2021, the report says. Decreased consumption led to a drop in prices.
«Despite the significant drop in gas prices in Europe in 2023, demand for January-March was on average 17% lower than the average level for 2017-2022,» Sechin said.
Production in industries that experienced a significant decline in output in 2022 did not show a significant recovery at the beginning of 2023, while the overall level of industrial output in March 2023 decreased by 3.5% compared to December 2022.
“Deindustrialization against the backdrop of reduced gas consumption led to the start of a recession in Europe’s largest economy. Thus, Germany's GDP in the 1st quarter of 2023 decreased by 0.3% compared to the previous quarter after a 0.5% decline in the 4th quarter of 2022. Thus, the German economy went into recession. The flight of energy-intensive industries from the EU will make the European economy even weaker and more vulnerable,” Sechin concluded.