EU cuts gas use by almost 20 percent

Europeans have greatly reduced their consumption of natural gas after the cost of the fossil fuel surged largely as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The European Union's statistics agency, Eurostat, said this week that gas consumption in the 27-member bloc was 19.3 percent lower between August and January than it was in the corresponding period in the preceding five years.

The drop was probably partly driven by householders and businesses wanting to cut costs, partly because of an unusually mild weather, and partly because consumers wanted to show they did not need Russian gas supplies, the EU's main source before the Russia-Ukraine conflict began, the agency said.

Reuters quoted Jacob Mandel, a senior associate at Aurora Energy Research in Oxford, England, as saying, "Weather has definitely played a very big role."

The EU, which had asked consumers to cut their consumption by 15 percent to help ease its transition away from Russian gas, greeted the 20 percent fall as good news.

Consumers cut consumption the most in Finland, where the amount of gas used during the period was 57.3 percent less than usual. Lithuania and Sweden also greatly cut consumption, Lithuania by 47.9 percent and Sweden by 40.2 percent.

The think tank Bruegel in Brussels said consumption in Germany, the biggest consumer of gas in the EU, fell last month alone by 27 percent among companies, and by 25 percent among households.

The EU imported 155 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia before the Russia-Ukraine conflict began, but, with the bloc switching away from Russian gas it is set to import only 20 billion cubic meters this year, Bloomberg said.