OREANDA-NEWS France increased its purchase of Russian gas by 42% in July this year, which helped it return to the first place among EU countries in terms of imports for the first time since May, RIA Novosti found out after studying Eurostat data.

In annual terms, French gas imports from Russia increased 2.1 times. As a result, the volume of its supplies reached 364.9 million euros. France imports LNG exclusively from Russia.

Hungary took the second place in terms of Russian gas imports, where only gas was supplied by pipe. Its shipments decreased by 22% on a monthly basis, and by 7% over the year to 171.4 million euros. The Greeks, who also bought only pipeline gas, were in third place with 132.4 million euros. In a month, they doubled their imports, and in annual terms - by 20%.

In addition, Bulgaria bought Russian gas among the EU countries in July. It increased purchases of gas in a gaseous state by 1.8 times in annual terms, and compared with June it decreased by 17% to 118.8 million euros.

The EU increased LNG imports from Russia by ten percent in June.

Belgium, which held the first place in gas purchases from the Russian Federation in June, dropped to fifth place, as it reduced imports by almost three times in a month to 91.6 million euros. And in a year - 3.6 times.

Slovakia received 89.6 million euros worth of Russian gas through the pipeline (-21% for the month, +162% for the year). 77.9 million tons of LNG arrived in Spain (-61% in a month, +20% in a year).

The Netherlands reduced the purchase of LNG by 2.2 times compared to June, to 37.8 million euros. And Portugal made its first purchase since February - for 34.4 million euros at once.