Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

• EU ministers are debating alternatives to Russian gas imports as the Ukraine transit deal expires in December 2024.

• Concerns are rising regarding rising Russian LNG imports and the effectiveness of EU sanctions on re-exports.

• Some EU members advocate for stricter LNG reporting and alternatives like Azerbaijan are being discussed, but no concrete solutions are yet agreed upon.

European Union energy ministers are discussing the flows of natural gas from Russia to the EU as the transit deal via Ukraine is nearing its end.

The ministers are also talking about the issue of Russia’s LNG shipments to the bloc, which have been rising in recent months.

The EU’s latest package of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine included in June a ban on reloading services of Russian LNG in EU territory for the purpose of transshipment operations to third countries, after a transition period of 9 months. This covers both ship-to-ship transfers and ship-to-shore transfers, as well as re-loading operations, and does not affect import but only re-export to third countries via the EU, the bloc said.

Now several EU member states, including France and Belgium, are calling on the European Commission to propose stricter requirements for reporting LNG import volumes by suppliers and storage companies.

“We have seen in Belgium a doubling of LNG volumes. These are probably destined for security of supply within Europe but we have difficulty implementing this (14th) package that's why we are calling for a tracking system,” Belgium’s Energy Minister Tinne van der Straeten said, as carried by Reuters.

Regarding remaining pipeline gas flows from Russia to the EU via the Ukraine transit route, Ukraine has already said on several occasions that it would not extend the current gas transit deal which expires on December 31, 2024.

But Slovakia, which continues to receive Russian gas, has said it would like to continue using the route via Ukraine.

EU energy ministers have been discussing replacing Russia with Azerbaijan as a supplier, but there haven’t been many details about how this could work, technically and politically, Bloomberg notes.

The EU is nowhere near an agreement on replacing Russian flows, and a possible deal could even be struck at the 11th hour or early next year, anonymous sources familiar with the discussions told Bloomberg.