The United States became France’s leading gas supplier in 2022, the year the war in Ukraine began, reveals the report “Key Energy Figures 2023”, published by the Ministry of Ecological Transition on Thursday September 28 , and which presents data from the previous year. They now provide a quarter of France’s gas imports, and thus take the place of Norway, or even Russia, from whom France still purchased 15% of its gas resources in 2022. Followed by Algeria, Qatar, the Netherlands and Nigeria.
“After a period of relative stability, gas supply in 2022 is profoundly modified by the repercussions of the war in Ukraine,” we read in the document published annually by the Ministry of Energy Transition. French imports of natural gas will increase significantly in 2022 “due to the strong growth in imports of liquefied natural gas, part of which is intended for other countries after regasification”, he specifies. The year 2022 was also marked by a “diversification of supplies” with purchases from other countries which have “strongly” developed, alongside purchases on markets where the origin of the gas cannot be traced.
“Today, about half of the LNG supply [gaz naturel liquéfié] of Europe is American, it is shale gas”, also observes the report. For Moez Ajmi, energy manager of EY, interviewed recently by AFP, the question is to know what the United States will do after the 2024 elections, because “the massive supply from Europe has created a rise in gas prices in the United States. “If, for example, tomorrow, Donald Trump is re-elected, it would surprise me if he continues “, he said.
The energy bill has tripled
In the context of very sharp price increases and supply tensions linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States has also established itself as the leading source of crude oil imports for France, while that they were in 9th place in 2018. Russia falls according to the ratio of 6th to 10th place. The quantities of crude oil imported from the United States increased by 37%, to 6.2 megatons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 2022, ahead of Kazakhstan (5.7 Mtoe), Nigeria (4.2), Algeria (3.7), while direct purchases from Russia decreased by 30% to only represent 5% of French supplies, the document indicates.
In total, France’s 2022 energy bill has almost been multiplied by 3 (multiplied by 2.6 in total, and even by 3.4 for gas alone) and it has “reached a record level”. A hefty addition linked to the surge in oil and gas prices, but also to an unprecedented deficit in nuclear electricity production. The energy bill weighed “to the tune of 116.3 billion euros in France’s trade deficit”, underlines the document, which specifies: “The gas bill increases significantly from 13.9 billion euros in 2021 to 46.7 billion euros in 2022, [tandis que] the oil and biofuel bill will increase by 79% in 2022.”
From then on, France’s energy independence fell to 50%, despite a trend in energy consumption to “decrease slightly for several years, excluding the health crisis”. This summary also recalls that “France now imports almost all of the fossil fuels it consumes”. In France, transport has the highest final energy consumption (34%), ahead of the residential sector (28%), industry (18%), the tertiary sector (17%) and the agriculture (3%).