A Middle East supply shock could revive the debate on imports from Moscow, the Norwegian energy minister has said
The conflict in the Middle East may force the EU to scrap its plans to abandon Russian natural gas next year, Norway’s energy minister, Terje Aasland, has reportedly suggested.
European gas prices have jumped 75% this week hitting a three-year high, according to trading data. The spike comes in light of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes across the Middle East.
The attacks forced tankers carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) to largely stop transiting the Strait of Hormuz and caused the world’s second-largest LNG exporter Qatar to halt production on Monday.
“With the geopolitical situation we see now, I believe the debate [about resuming Russian gas imports] will be revived,” Aasland said during a press conference in Oslo on Tuesday, as cited by Reuters.
He noted that Norway, the EU’s largest supplier of pipeline gas, is already “producing at full capacity.” There’s no additional output to be found, he stated, as cited by Bloomberg.
The EU gets between 5% and 15% of its total gas supplies from Middle Eastern sources, primarily Qatar. The US is the dominant LNG supplier with a 60% share.
Last month, the EU agreed to ban all gas imports from Russia, once the bloc’s largest supplier, by late 2027. The measure was designed to be approved by a “reinforced majority” of countries using trade and energy laws, rather than as a sanctions measure requiring unanimous approval.
The bloc has already faced repeated jumps in energy costs since it scaled back Russian oil and gas imports following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Landlocked members Hungary and Slovakia have contested the measure, threatening to challenge the ban in court.
Goldman Sachs estimates that a month-long halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz could send European gas prices up by as much as 130% from current levels, putting renewed pressure on households and industry.
US President Donald Trump has indicated that military operations against Iran could continue for several weeks.
Russia has consistently maintained that it remains a reliable energy supplier despite Western sanctions and has accused the US of striving to control the global energy market.
