The value of Germany’s imports from Russia jumped by 10.2% to $2.94 billion (2.9 billion euros) in July, compared to the same month a year ago, mostly as a result of soaring oil and gas prices, the German Federal Statistical Office said on Monday.
In terms of volume, however, German imports from Russia slumped by 45.8% in July compared to a year earlier, the statistics office noted.
The value of crude oil and natural gas imports from Russia rose by 1.6% to $1.42 billion (1.4 billion euros), the data showed, despite the much lower volumes of those energy products compared to the same month of 2021.
The value of German imports of coke and petroleum products from Russia jumped by 72.5% while coal imports doubled in value a month before the EU’s embargo on Russian coal imports kicked in in August.
Meanwhile, Germany’s exports to Russia plunged by 56.8% in July from a year ago.
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, and other countries in the EU such as the UK, are looking to reduce and replace their imports of Russian energy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The UK, which was much less dependent on Russian energy than Germany at the start of the war, has already succeeded. The UK did not import any fuels from Russia in June for the first time since records began, the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) said last month, meaning that Britain managed to phase out oil and gas purchases from Russia as it had pledged in the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine six months ago.
According to the Finish think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), of the $160 billion (158 billion euro) in energy exports that Russia has earned in the past six months, over half of it was bought by the European Union. The EU imported 54% of all Russian energy exports in the first six months of the war in Ukraine, which is worth approximately $86 billion (85 billion euros).
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice