(Bloomberg) -- France and several other European Union member states are set to call for stricter tracking of Russian liquefied natural gas imports to help phase out reliance on Moscow’s supplies of the fuel.
Paris wants more measures to provide information on suppliers as deliveries of Russian LNG to Europe continue to rise despite calls for reductions by the bloc’s leaders.
The French government and its allies want to toughen up the transparency provisions under the 14th package of sanctions on Russia, which banned the so-called transshipments of the super-chilled fuel to third countries passing through European ports, according to a draft document seen by Bloomberg.
Alongside Sweden, Czech Republic, Austria, Latvia, Finland, Croatia and Lithuania, France wants to strengthen the notification system for unloading the Russian LNG, including information on the identity of suppliers and the volumes imported by them. The details would be made public.
“We consider important to ensure full transparency on imports of Russian natural gas and to shed light on the identity of natural gas suppliers who import Russian LNG in order to design adequate solutions to effectively tackle our dependency on Russian natural gas imports,” the French document, which is still subject to changes, states.
The EU’s energy ministers are meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday to discuss energy prices and preparations for the winter, including progress toward phasing out fossil fuels.
While overall fossil fuel supplies from Russia have fallen since the country’s invasion of Ukraine, the amount of LNG coming to the EU has seen a marked increase. While sanctions target some supplies that are then shipped elsewhere, the data to monitor supplies is insufficient, the countries say.
The volumes delivered to French ports make the country one of the biggest importers of Russian LNG even if the fuel is then shipped to other places within the EU.
“Some of these natural gas suppliers have booked capacity in EU LNG facilities to import increasing volumes of Russian LNG, but these natural gas suppliers are currently not properly identified,” the signatories state. “We strongly support the phase-out of our dependency on Russian natural gas imports as soon as possible.”
Belgium is making a separate effort to cooperate better on LNG data, calling for a coordinated mechanism to manage the transshipment of the fossil fuel. That could include a so-called mass balance system to trace the origin of cargoes, according to a paper seen by Bloomberg.
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