UK Bans LNG Imports from Russia Completely Effect From 1 Jan 2023

12 January 2023

The United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced on Wednesday that it will prohibit the imports of Russian LNG. The UK banned Russian LNG imports from 1st January 2023 onwards and put a stop to it completely. The announcement came as an answer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that came out in the headlines on February 24, 2023. Since then, both the United Kingdom and the European Union’s member countries have been slacking off their reliance on Russian fuel and oil.

How Much Does Russia Export LNG To The UK?

Russia’s export data shown below give the details on the yearly exports of Russia to the UK. The time period covered in the below-data ranges from the year 2018 to the year 2021. As seen in the export data of Russia below, 2021 recorded the highest value of LNG exports to the UK.

UK’s Reliance On Russian LNG Imports

The quarterly export trend for the LNG imported in the UK are shown in the image below. The data features the top three importing countries for the UK’s LNG imports on a quarterly basis. The top 3 countries taken from the observations of the UK’s import data are—Qatar, USA, and Russia.

As it can be seen in the shown-data, the imports of LNG from Russia in the UK has been vanished after the first quarter of 2022 and registered a decrease in the value too compared to the previous quarter. On the other hand, the imports from the other two countries increased considerably.

Europe’s LNG Importing Countries

Since the United Kingdom was not a part of the European Union anymore, following “Brexit” in January 2020, the shown data belongs to the LNG imports of the European countries in 2021. The data features the top importing countries for Europe with their respective import values.

The point to show the evaluated import data of Europe (as per availability) is to reflect on and create a connection with the shown data in the second section. Even though Russian exports to the UK have diminished from Q2-2022, the reliance on other countries can be certainly higher.

UK Banned Russian LNG

The below-shown UK imports 2022 features the monthly values for LNG imports from Russia in 2022, as per the available UK import data 2022. The values from February show a sudden fall due to sanctions imposed on Russia by the UK. Here are the values of UK LNG imports from Russia in the first three months of 2022.

Russian invasion of Ukraine has flared a rise in the gradual abandonment of the Russian alliance by different countries and prohibiting the trade of Russian commodities that fuel its economy. The decision by the officials in the United Kingdom government is an effort to end Europe’s reliance on Russia. This has sent a message to other countries, and it will be remained to see how effective the decision is. Meanwhile, the EU is also trying to end its reliance on Russian energy by adopting different alternatives such as solar energy and hydro energy.