Natural gas demand drops by 7.4% in 2023

The EU’s demand for natural gas fell by another 7.4 per cent in 2023, according to figures released Tuesday by the EU’s statistics agency, to a total of 12.72 million terajoules.

EU demand for natural gas has been declining for 2 consecutive years, and the figure follows a 13.3% yearly decrease in 2022. The data from Eurostat marks the lowest demand recorded since the collection of monthly cumulated data began in 2008.

The reduction has been impacted by measures outlined in the the EU’s Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1369 on coordinated demand-reduction measures for gas. This forms part of the REPowerEU plan to end EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, as well as the ongoing energy crisis and the increase of energy prices.

The largest natural gas consumers in the EU continued to reduce demand in 2023. In 2023, Germany recorded a 2.96 million terajoules demand (-3.8% compared with 2022), Italy 2.35 million terajoules (-10.0%) and France 1.36 million terajoules (-11.7%). Looking at all EU countries, demand decreased in 21 out of 27 countries, with increases recorded in Finland (+25.6%), Sweden (+11.1%), Poland (+5.3%), Malta (+4.5%), Denmark (+1.1%) and Croatia (+0.8%).

Source: EUbusiness