EU has no alternative to Russian energy

There is not enough capacity globally to replace Russia’s gas supplies to the European Union, while Moscow has many markets to sell its energy to, former Saudi Aramco executive vice president Sadad Al-Husseini told CNBC on Monday.

“The US doesn’t have the LNG capacity to replace Russia’s exports to Europe,” he said, noting that electricity bills will skyrocket across the EU this winter.

According to Al-Husseini, this could lead to serious problems in the global energy market. “This situation is a new world and it’s not very good for energy,” he warned.

“In any case, there is not enough LNG capacity worldwide to compensate for Russian exports to Europe,” said the former executive, adding “It will be years before the EU finds resources to replace Russian supplies.”

Referring to Moscow’s loss of EU buyers, he noted that this is happening despite Western sanctions “Many alternative markets” for Russian energy, including China, Japan or India.

Meanwhile, Europe has no alternative energy sources, he said, “While the US is already exhausted, North Africa is struggling,” and OPEC are also running out of spare capacity. “So it’s a global problem” he said.

The official hinted that while the Russian economy could suffer from Western sanctions, the rest of the world will suffer with them. However, he emphasized that “Russia could recover much sooner than Europe.”