DUBAI, October 6. /TASS/. European countries will not be able to completely abandon Russian energy resources and will partially resume supplies in the future, Dave Ernsberger, co-chairman of S&P Global Commodity Insights, expressed such an opinion in an interview with TASS.

" I think that there will always be a natural appetite for Russian oil and gas in Western Europe, market driven appetite. <...> I imagine there will be a time when flows will resume, but perhaps not at the level they were before, because there actually has been some substitution that is maybe more permanent in nature," the American analyst said on the sidelines of the international Energy Markets Forum conference, which was held in Fujairah.

According to him, if supplies are completely cut off, European countries will be forced to purchase oil and liquefied natural gas at inflated prices.

"The alternative supply sources - instead of Russian oil and gas are from the US, from the Middle East, from much further away, and not delivered by pipeline, but delivered by tanker and generally speaking, [these are] more expensive and more interruptible supplies," he noted.

Ernsberger believes that Europe's gradual transition away from Russian energy is driven not only by the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, but also by the recognition of the need to diversify supply sources following the events of 2021. At that time, European countries faced a crisis amid low reserves in underground gas storage facilities following record-breaking winter fuel withdrawals, as well as energy shortages resulting from declining wind farm output.