The increase is reflected in a forecast made by the US major bank Citigroup. The forecast is quoted by the French newspaper Les Echos and the Russian edition of financial magazine Forbes.
Estimates show that European countries that import Russian gas pay as much as $ 200 million a day to the Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom.
Christian Kopfer is a raw material expert at Handelsbanken and says that he has not made any similar calculations himself, but that the figures sound reasonable.
– It is probably very good, it depends a bit on which currency you count in, but on the whole it is the way it looks. And the increased revenues are not due to the war in Ukraine, but to the fact that energy prices in the world have increased so much compared to the previous year.
He says there is a structural imbalance in the world where the demand for fossil fuels is greater than ever, despite the fact that large parts of the political establishment agree that we should consume less and less oil.
EU member states have agreed to try to phase out dependence on Russian gas by 2027. Poland and Bulgaria have refused to agree to Putin’s demand to pay for their gas in Russian rubles, after which Gazprom turned off the taps to those countries. And on Friday, the same message came from Finland, which will now also have its gas pipeline shut down.
This in turn means that energy prices in Europe can rise further, Christian Kopfer believes.
– The cost of gas has risen 300 percent compared to last year. So Russia is still making huge sums of money, even though more and more countries are withdrawing. There will be a smaller supply of energy in Europe, which will put upward pressure on prices. It is thankful that we are now entering the summer months, then the pressure from consumers will decrease in any case, says Christian Kopfer.
However, he says it is industries in Europe that consume the most gas.
– Europe is industry-heavy. There are steel industries that need large amounts of energy to operate. Since then, food prices have risen very much already. And this is about the fertilizer that is used a lot for different crops, then it is also gas.
The paper industry, which manufactures toilet and kitchen paper, for example, also has a number of factories in Eastern European countries, according to Kopfer.
– Even these industries can find it difficult to deliver if energy prices go up.
According to the Foreign Policy Institute, oil is, oil products, natural gas and coal account for about half of Russia’s export earnings. And the money that Russia spends on its invasion war in Ukraine is estimated at about $ 900 million a day.
– Russia is completely dependent on continuing to export gas, oil and uranium, otherwise they would have turned off the gas taps a long time ago, says Christian Kopfer.
Tomas Kåberger, researcher in energy technology development at Chalmers University of Technology has previously been critical of Europe not restricting gas supplies from Russia.
– I think it would have been more constructive to shut down exports already a couple of months ago, to show that it is precisely this invasion war that is disapproved of. I think more people should think about how this war should end. Now an economic conflict has been created between Russia and Europe, which means that both are losing financially in the long term, says Kåberger.
He believes that the war in Ukraine and the consequent conflict with Russia will put Europe into climate change.
– This situation, with the rising energy prices, means that the expansion of fossil-free energy sources has become much more profitable. Now everyone will accelerate the transition because there has been an international security risk, it is a much stronger incentive than all climate policy instruments that have come so far.
Tomas Kåberger says that a fossil-free transformation of industry would be a major threat to the Russian economy.
– They have no investment at all in keeping up with renewable energy development. They have every interest in trying to delay climate change. This can be traced in various statements made by Russian politicians about renewable energy sources and what they think about using less nuclear power, says Kåberger.