Turkey has assessed Europe’s dependence on Russian gas: LNG will not replace Russian raw materials in Europe, according to an article by the Turkish newspaper Anadolu
Even if Europe uses all of its terminals at maximum capacity, its infrastructure would only accept 145 million tons of liquefied natural gas, which at maximum capacity would only compensate for half the feedstock from Russia.
The European countries’ demand for natural gas varies between 340-350 billion cubic metres per year. Last year, the EU countries imported on average 380 million cubic metres of gas per day and around 140 billion cubic metres of gas per year via pipeline from Russia. If Europe wants to replace all Russian pipeline gas with LNG, then it would have to import about 275 billion cubic metres of natural gas from other sources – which is more than half the world’s LNG trade.
In order to fill the place of pipeline gas coming from Russia with renewable energy sources, 370 gigawatts of wind power would have to be built in Europe. And if Europe were to focus on nuclear power, it would need an additional 115 gigawatts of installed nuclear capacity to replace Russian gas.
Based on these figures, LNG, which the European continent is considering as an alternative, does not seem to be a substitute that can be realised in the short term.