• Deutsche Energy Terminal has been ordered to reject Russian LNG, according to the Financial Times.
• It comes as the EU plans to buy more liquefied natural gas from the United States.
• Germany has not imported LNG directly from Russia since the invasion.

Germany has reportedly asked its ports to reject Russian shipments of liquefied natural gas in a bid to further isolate Vladimir Putin’s energy industry.

The country’s Economy Ministry has asked state-owned Deutsche Energy Terminal not to accept deliveries of Russian LNG, according to a letter dated November 6 obtained by the Financial Times.

The letter was sent after the company was due to receive a Russian shipment at its Brunsbüttel import site on Sunday, the FT said.

He added that the decision would protect Germany’s “higher public interests.”

The letter adds that accepting deliveries would go against the reason the German terminal was initially opened: to allow Germany and the EU to become “independent of Russian gas.”

It comes as the EU plans to buy more LNG from the United States when President-elect Donald Trump takes office, in a bid to convince him not to impose high import duties on European companies.

Trump pledged during the election campaign to impose a new era of commerce prices. He has pledged to impose 60% tariffs on goods imported from China and 10% across-the-board tariffs on all other products entering the United States.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week she would consider replacing Russian LNG with more U.S. imports as part of trade talks.

“We still get a lot of LNG from Russia, and why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper for us and lowers our energy prices,” von der Leyen told reporters on Friday.

“This is a topic we can start a discussion on,” she said, referring to the U.S. trade deficit with the euro zone, which has reached 131.3 billion dollars in 2022.

“It would be in the United States’ interest for Europe to continue to avoid Russian fossil fuels, given that the U.S. oil and gas industry has been a major beneficiary of this decision,” Warren wrote Patterson, head of raw materials strategy at ING, last week.

The EU – previously dependent on Russian energy – banned maritime imports of Russian crude and refined oil products following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Like BI before reportedit has also reduced most of its pipelined natural gas imports from Russia, replacing it largely with LNG from the United States. The United States is now one of the main exporters of gas to Europe, representing 46% of the block’s supply in 2023.

Germany has not imported LNG directly from Russia since the invasion.

However, according to a Kpler report obtained by FT, the country’s state-owned energy group, Sefe, has a long-term contract to import Russian LNG via France.

In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for the German Economy Ministry said it would not comment on “possible document leaks.”

“It is true that Germany does not import Russian gas and it is also clear to the Ministry of Economy and Climate Action that this should not be done via German LNG terminals,” added the spokesperson.

Deutsche Energy Terminal and Sefe did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.