The Three Seas Initiative (3SI) is an association of EU-member states first organized in 2015 by Croatia and Poland. It has since grown to thirteen members—Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia—along with two non-EU countries holding Partner-Participant status: Moldova and Ukraine. The initiative seeks to boost regional economic development by improving energy, transport, and digital infrastructure.
This week’s charts compare the region’s natural gas supply picture. 3SI countries, notably Bulgaria, continue to import about 1.5 BCF/d of natural gas from Russia. At the same time, U.S. LNG exports into the region have grown with the commissioning of LNG receiving terminals in Poland, Lithuania, Croatia, and Greece, with volumes at times reaching 1.6 BCF/d.
The comparison illustrates how new LNG import infrastructure is providing 3SI members with an alternative supply source of a scale comparable to their remaining Russian gas imports, advancing the initiative’s energy security objectives.
The analysis expands on EPRINC’s September 2023 publication, “The Three Seas Initiative: An Introduction and Energy Security Assessment.”
From the EPRINC Chart of the Week archive.