Netherlands still importing 12% of LNG supplies from Russia

The Netherlands is still importing around 12% of its liquid natural gas from Russia even though EU countries have committed to ban all imports from next year.

A report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found that the Netherlands is one of five nations that is still importing Russian LNG, along with Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal. Belgium still received 40% of its gas from Russia in the first quarter of this year.

Exactly how much is bought for the Dutch market is difficult to quantify because much of the imports that arrive at Rotterdam harbour are earmarked for other European countries. But Jilles van den Beukel, of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, told NOS the amount was “much larger than I had expected.”

The amount is only slightly down from 2025, when 13% of gas imported by the Netherlands came from Russia, but considerably lower than in 2022, the year the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, when the figure was 34%.

The inflow increased in 2025, a trend that climate and green growth minister Sophie Hermans put down to long-term purchasing contracts that cannot easily be broken.

The IEEFA has called on European countries to increase their efforts to cut gas consumption by investing more in renewable sources, in order to reduce their exposure to price surges and disruptions to supplies. It says Europe could cut consumption by 14% by 2030, which would cut demand by 23%.

The EU has banned imports of Russian natural gas by sea container from the start of 2027, and pipeline imports from next spring. The Netherlands, along with other European countries, has compensated by importing more natural gas from the USA, which is now the source of 77% of imports.

Van den Beukel said the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which handles 20% of liquid gas supplies, during the conflict between Iran and the USA, had undermined the EU’s efforts to ban Russian gas imports and driven prices up.

“I wouldn’t raise my eyebrows if Brussels postponed the date for the ban again,” he said.

“On the one hand you don’t want to make the LNG market even tighter, which means more expensive, but on the other hand you don’t want to fill Putin’s war chest.”