EU spends €6 billion on Russian LNG surge

Of the 140 cargoes that left Russia's Yamal LNG plant in the first half of 2026, 136 went to EU ports, worth an estimated €5.96 billion (Urgewald). The full EU ban on Russian LNG (gas cooled into liquid so it can travel by ship) under long-term contracts takes effect on 1 January 2027 (EUR-Lex). Companies are buying as much as they can before the door closes.

Why the ban created a buying window

The EU banned short-term Russian LNG contracts from 25 April 2026 but left long-term contracts legal until January 2027, with pipeline gas on its own schedule into late 2027 (S&P Global). The reason: cutting all Russian gas at once risked a supply shock. ACER (the EU's energy regulators' agency) estimates that authorised Russian gas contracts still cover 45–55 billion cubic metres per year (ACER).

That caution is defensible. EU gas storage stood at just 42.88% in early July, and prices were not high enough to make traders store more gas for winter (ZfK). But phased deadlines create predictable behaviour. If companies know a legal window closes, the rational move is to maximise purchases before it does. ACER's own first monitoring report found Russian LNG imports rose 17% year-on-year after the regulation entered force in March (Euronews).

Where the gas lands is not where it's burned

France took 3.74 million tonnes, Belgium 2.70 million tonnes and Spain 2.50 million tonnes in the first half of 2026 (Urgewald). In June alone, France bought €349 million worth, Spain €258 million and Belgium €254 million (CREA).

No public EU database traces a Russian LNG cargo from port to final consumer. Spain's import data doesn't subtract re-exports (El Confidencial). Belgium's Zeebrugge terminal offers unloading, storage, regasification and ship-to-ship transfer, making it a hub for the wider European market, not just Belgian consumers (Fluxys). Germany, Europe's largest gas market, barely appears in the cargo data but connects to Belgium and the Netherlands through pipelines. Russian LNG that lands in Zeebrugge can influence German wholesale costs without a tanker ever docking in Hamburg.

Bruegel's gas-flow data and Kpler's ship tracking answer different questions, and neither shows where molecules end up (Bruegel). EU ports received record Russian LNG. Which country burned it is not publicly visible.

Who collects, who pays

Russia collects. Yamal accounts for more than 60% of Russia's LNG exports, and Europe absorbed nearly all of the plant's output while only four cargoes went to China (Kyiv Independent). Greek-linked shipping company Dynagas carried about 35% of Yamal cargoes in the first half of the year, earning transport fees on every voyage (gCaptain).

The losers are harder to see. Poland expanded its own LNG imports from 41 TWh to 88 TWh between 2021 and 2025, building new regasification capacity to replace Russian gas (PIE). Polish media covered western European purchases as a fairness problem: some member states paid early to diversify, while others kept buying until the deadline forced them to stop (TVN24).

For consumers, the effect cuts both ways. More LNG at European terminals can ease hub prices (the wholesale benchmark used in gas trading) in the short term, because extra supply lowers what buyers compete to pay. But front-loading Russian gas through December risks making the January 2027 cliff steeper: the more Europe relies on Yamal now, the sharper the replacement challenge when the ban arrives.

Europe avoided an immediate gas shock by delaying the ban. The delay turned part of the phase-out into a final buying window, sending €5.96 billion to Russia's Arctic gas industry in six months, while the law designed to stop exactly this was already on the books.