Complete replacement of Russian oil and gas with the US LNG for the European Union is a difficult task that will inevitably affect European consumers. This opinion was expressed for TASS by Dmitry Kuznetsov, a Researcher of the International Trade Department at the Gaidar Institute, and Vladimir Sedalishchev, Expert of the Economic Policy Foundation.
Dmitry Kuznetsov noted: "Russia’s role in the European gas market does not appear to be decisive, but it should not be completely neglected either. Despite the EU efforts to reduce dependence on Russian gas, Russia remained a significant supplier of gas to the European market in 2024. The largest growth in supplies was in LNG, which highlights the difficulties for the EU to completely abandon Russian gas in the short term." At the same time, according to the expert, "refusal of Russian supplies looks the least painful for the EU in the markets of oil, oil products and nuclear materials, which allows to expect an extremely small negative effect on the economy of the united Europe."
Vladimir Sedalischev believes that "a refusal to supply gas and oil from Russia is reasonably expected, albeit with some noticeable markup for consumers." However, he thinks that nuclear fuel situation is more complicated: "Some EU nuclear power plants were built by Russia/USSR and the transition from Russian nuclear technology to, for example, French, may require significant investment due to differences in technical standards. Therefore, the possibility of completely abandoning nuclear fuel from Russia remains questionable compared to hydrocarbons."