In April 2019, the report of the European Commission to the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, the European Economic and Social Committee and the European Committee of the Regions on progress in the field of renewable energy sources (RES) was presented. The report summarizes progress in the development of RES in the EU in terms of commitments undertaken by 2020, analyzes issues of RES and predicts the long-term development until 2030.

On April 3, 2019, Dr. Piotr Naimski, Plenipotentiary of the Government for Strategic Energy Infrastructure, announced the start of preparations for the second phase of construction of the “Lech Kaczyński” LNG terminal in Świnoujście. As Dr. Naimski said on March 18, the European Commission agreed to allocate EUR 128 million to Poland for the completion of the second stage of the LNG terminal, namely to increase the production capacity of the terminal from 5 to 7.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year and for the completion of additional gas storage and gas infrastructure.

Over the past 50 years, global volumes of LNG production have increased 21 times – from 189 billion cubic meters of LNG per year in the period from 1967 to 1990 – up to 676 billion cubic meters of LNG annually by the end of 2018. At present, the share of LNG in the total annual gas consumption in the world (3.67 trillion cubic meters) is 18%.
Jonathan Stern, head of gas programs at the Oxford Energy Research Institute, believes that by the end of 2025 global volumes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) will increase by 418 billion cubic meters of gas per year (up to 1 trillion 94 billion cubic meters of gas). The growth of LNG production will mainly result from the launch of new LNG projects in the US, the potential capacity of which is estimated at 265 billion cubic meters of gas.

On March 8, 2019 in Brussels, the European Commission Spokesperson for climate action and energy, Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, made a statement on the results of the implementation of the Joint U.S.-EU Statement on strategic cooperation with respect to energy, signed on July 25, 2018 by the President of the European Commission J.Juncker and US President D.Trump. Since the signing of the statement, the export of US liquefied natural gas to the EU has grown by 181%. From the beginning of this year, liquefied gas from the United States amounted to 12.6% of the total LNG import into the EU.

On February 1st, 2019, in Moscow, O. Fridman, the first deputy chairman of the board of one of Russia’s largest gas companies, PJSC “NOVATEK”, announced the signing of an agreement between PJSC “NOVATEK” and the German technological conglomerate Siemens AG for the supply of nine new gas “Siemens” compressors for the new “Arctic LNG 2” project in Russia, with a capacity of 19.8 million tons of LNG per year.

The European Gas Conference on Promoting a Dialogue between the EU and its leading Gas Suppliers, organized by the Austrian Oil and Gas Company “OMV”, was held in Vienna, Austria on January 28-30, 2019. The event was attended by representatives of the European Commission, experts from more than 200 world energy companies and government representatives of gas producing countries.

Gas production in the area of ​​the largest Dutch marine gas field “Groningen” may be reduced to 4 billion cubic meters of gas per year as early as 2020, and by the end of 2030, gas production in the “Groningen” area will be fully suspended. Starting from 2030, like most developed EU countries, the Netherlands will turn from a leading gas exporter to gas importer and the government of the country is working on a policy to further ensure the country’s energy balance.

Razvan Nicolescu, an expert at the Bucharestoffice of Deloitte, an international consulting agency, believes that the new legislative norm for progressive taxation of gas companies will allow the government to receive additional revenues to the state budget  in the amount of almost 26 billion USD by 2040. At the same time, the GDP of Romania, […]

According to the analysis of research conducted by the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, regarding the impact of new generation of renewable energy technologies (on the base of Renewable Energy Sources, RES) on global geopolitics, as well as on selected regions and countries, we have identified the main trends of this process in the medium and long term.