Despite a massive throttling of pipeline natural gas to Europe after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, European Union (EU) members in September still led the world in Russian oil and natural gas imports, according to a new report.

Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, EU members have imported around $97 billion in Russian fossil fuels as of late September, or about $252 million/day, according to an updated report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) published at the beginning of the month. 

“Russia’s fossil fuel exports into the EU have seen a consistent decrease since August, when our last report found that exports had stabilized,” CREA researchers wrote. “Exports of pipeline gas, oil and coal fell, while LNG exports showed little...