Russia says rejecting its gas will have cost Europe 1 trillion euros by end-2024

EUROPE’S cumulative “losses” from cutting purchases of Russian gas have reached 700 billion euros ($761 billion) to date and will hit 1 trillion euros (S$1.46 trillion) by the end of the year, a Russian official said on Thursday (Jun 6).

Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said at an economic forum in St Petersburg that this reflected the cost of substituting Russian gas with liquefied natural gas and what he called “very large industrial losses in Europe”.

European countries have sharply reduced dependence on Russian energy since the start of the war in Ukraine, which has slashed the earnings of Russia’s Gazprom. The gas giant reported a net loss of US$7.1 billion in 2023, its first annual loss in more than 20 years. REUTERS