Oil and gas are two of Russia’s key exports, and when the West placed sanctions on the country in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, they had significant effects.
Since the invasion, prices have rocketed, with energy bills soaring for everyone in the UK.
Meanwhile, the Government has unveiled a new plan to cut greenhouse gases and lower energy costs by investing in renewable energy and nuclear.
Here is everything we know about where the UK gets its gas.
Where does the UK get its gas from?
About half of the UK’s gas comes from the North Sea, and a third is sourced from Norway, reports iNews.
While the Metro says the UK’s gas imports are primarily natural gas, in either a liquefied or gaseous state.
According to Gov.uk, the UK’s “single largest source of gas” is from the “UK Continental Shelf and the vast majority ofâ¯imports come from reliable suppliers such as Norway”.
The UK gets a highly diverse supply of energy sources including “pipelines from the UK and Norway continental shelf, interconnectors with the continent, and three liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals, providing Britain with one of the largest LNG import infrastructures in Europe”.
How much gas does the UK get from Russia?
Russia is Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas, providing about 35 per cent of the gas used, reports iNews.
The UK’s reliance on Russian gas is smaller, at just three per cent.
How much are bills expected to go up?
In response to soaring gas and electricity prices, last September, former prime minister Liz Truss announced that the typical UK household would pay no more than £2,500 a year for energy for two years.
Without intervention at the time, the average household bill would have risen by 80 per cent, from £1,971 to £3,549 a year.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced the extension of the coverage of the energy price guarantee for the next three months, ahead of the Spring Budget.
It was announced that the energy price guarantee would remain in place until June.
It means average bills will be capped at £2,500 a month until June, rather than increasing to £3,000 next month as planned.
Why are gas prices so high?
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), gas prices began to increase at the end of 2021, with the increase down to “increased global gas demand following the easing of coronavirus pandemic restrictions, lower domestic renewable energy production, and higher gas demand in Asia, among other factors”.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also had an impact on what we pay for gas. The ONS revealed, “Russia supplied 24.1 per cent of the UK’s refined oil imports in 2021, however, Russia fell to the sixth-largest import source for refined oil in April 2022 as importers seek alternatives following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
What is the Net Zero plan?
The Net Zero plan has numerous measures to cut emissions including announcing the first carbon-capture sites. Carbon capture is the process of trapping carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels or other chemical or biological processes and storing it in such a way that it is unable to affect the atmosphere. This is with the aim of mitigating the effects of global warming.
Ministers say they want the UK to have the cheapest electricity in Europe by 2035, but admit the strategy is unlikely to bring down bills next year.
The 30-page Powering Up Britain document contains many measures covering offshore wind, nuclear and green hydrogen, though many had already been announced previously.
But Labour said the plans were a “rehash” with no new investment.
The UK’s territorial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions fell by 2.2 per cent in 2022, new provisional statistics show.
CO2 emissions fell by 2.4 per cent compared to the previous year, largely because of homes using less heating due to higher energy prices and temperatures throughout 2022.
