Russian natural gas projects in the Arctic: A new hope for ailing exports?
Vol.15,No.S(2025)
CPR Special issue
The 2022 development of the Russian aggression in Ukraine has stirred up the long-silent waters of the European energy dimension. The European Union’s (EU) reaction was strong and surprisingly swift in comparison with the lax response to the start of the war in 2014. The consequent geopolitical shifts could be compared to those of the early 1990s, and the changes in traditional demand – supply energy relations are especially radical. With Russian coal and crude oil imports under sanctions, the European Union also quickly turned away from Russian natural gas. Natural gas, being the key Russian energy export commodity, lies at the centre of this paper. In the wake of the invasion and the decrease in gas exports to Europe, and with the federal budget being largely dependent on revenues from primary commodity exports, it is clearly apparent that Russia needs to look for customers elsewhere. One of the apparent options is to tap into the Russian Arctic export potential. The primary aim of this paper is to analyse the Russian Arctic export potential and to evaluate its capacity to replace the lost volumes using liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities. The authors use diachronic comparative analysis to evaluate Russia’s export capacities in the Arctic and compare them to the situation before the war and in the following years up to 2040. The authors are thus able to assess the potential and possible impact the new Arctic export facilities may have on Russia’s ability to offset the lost European market.
Arctic; Russia; hydrocarbons; Russian–Ukrainian war ; pipelines; LNG
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