EU’s energy import dependency decreased in 2020: the most important fuel sources in the EU energy mix in 2020, oil and petroleum products (34.5% of total fuel) and natural gas (23.7% of total fuel) are mainly imported.
EU’s energy import dependency decreased in 2020: the most important fuel sources in the EU energy mix in 2020, oil and petroleum products (34.5% of total fuel) and natural gas (23.7% of total fuel) are mainly imported.
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In 2020, the EU imported 57.5% of the energy it consumed, a decrease of almost 3 percentage points (pp) compared with 2019, when this indicator hit an all-time high of 60.5%.
The decrease was the result of changes in the main components of this indicator: net imports dropped by -12.6% and gross available energy changed by -8.1%, the latter was affected mainly by reductions in primary production.
These changes were linked to the curtailed demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and the subsequent economic crisis.
The import dependency rate for crude oil, an essential commodity for the petrochemical industry and the production of fuels used in transport, was the highest of all fuels and decreased only slightly from 96.8% in 2019 to 96.2% in 2020, interrupting an upward trend which started in 2015 (95.2%).
The rate registered in 2019 was the highest since 1990 when crude oil import dependency was 93.2%.
The relative steadiness in dependency in 2020 was the result of a decrease in net imports (-13.0%) and a similar decrease in gross available energy (-12.5%).
Natural gas, a major fuel for electricity production and heating in the EU, had the second-highest import dependency rate of 83.6% in 2020, a 6pp drop from 89.6% in 2019, the year with the highest import share since 1990.
The change in 2020 was the result of a drop in net imports (-9.0%) and a smaller decrease in gross available energy (-2.4%).
[Source](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/edn-20220209-1)
Hmm, what was happening in 2020? You at the back looking at your phone, what do you think was happening in 2020 that might have resulted in a drop in demand for energy?
The name we should all know is [Johan Sverdrup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Sverdrup_oil_field), the date is not too long after [2024](https://euobserver.com/climate/153586).
“Mainly imported” isn’t quite an option.
We already burned whatever we could mine/produce/harvest inside Europe.
It has to be said that the countries in the EU depleted quite some gas fields over time leading to more dependency from outside the EU.
So how have all these investments in renewables not made a fucking dent in this?