Britain in a panic due to the possible cessation of gas supplies from Norway

MOSCOW, 18 Sep — PRIME. The British authorities are in a panic because of the possible cessation of gas supplies from Norway, according to the British newspaper Express.

According to Thorbjorn Soltvedt, chief analyst at consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft, Britain has relied on Norwegian gas to move away from Russian gas, but a dry summer has forced Oslo to curb energy exports.

“Due to the drought in Norway, the water level in some reservoirs is too low, which led to the shutdown of hydroelectric power plants. Therefore, the country had to release its own gas reserves, which means an inevitable reduction in export supplies,” Soltvedt explained to Express.

The expert recalled that Norway is heavily dependent on hydropower generation. At the same time, Western countries purposefully increased the supply of Norwegian energy carriers, which will now become a real problem for them.

At the end of March, London refused to pay for Russian gas in rubles. Since then, the United Kingdom has been receiving blue fuel from fields in the North Sea, in Norway, and also imports liquefied natural gas from around the world, including from the United States.

Western countries are faced with rising energy prices and a surge in inflation due to the imposition of sanctions against Moscow and the policy of abandoning Russian fuel. Due to the rise in the price of fuel, primarily gas, industry in the West has largely lost its competitive advantages, which has also affected other sectors of the economy. Also, the United States and European countries are facing record inflation in decades.