It’s more than expected! Natural gas consumption in the European Union fell 20.1% in August-November compared to the average of the previous five years for the same period, more than its target of 15%, Eurostat announced on Tuesday. Faced with drastic reductions in Russian gas deliveries, in the context of the war in Ukraine, the 27 EU countries agreed at the end of July to voluntarily reduce their gas consumption between August 1, 2022 and August 31 March 2023.
From August to November 2022, consumption fell “in most member states”, underlined the European statistics office. in a press release. Eurostat did not provide an analysis of the reasons for this drop, which could be partly explained by a particularly mild autumn in Europe, by additional efforts made by consumers or even by a drop in production in certain industries.
Up to -52% in Finland
In 18 EU countries, consumption fell beyond the target, sometimes very significantly. Thus gas consumption fell by 52.7% in Finland, 43.2% in Latvia and 41.6% in Lithuania. Six other countries managed to reduce their consumption, but did not reach the target. This is notably the case of Spain, Italy and Portugal. Finally, two member countries, Malta (+7.1%) and Slovakia (+2.6%) saw their consumption increase. The decline observed in France was within the EU average. Eurostat points out that gas consumption in the EU has remained consistently below the average for the past five years since January.