Where does the UK get its gas from?

🚢 Norway is the UK’s biggest gas supplier

🌊 The North Sea provides just 29.5% of our gas

📉 UK gas consumption has only dropped by 9% over the past 10 years

The UK’s gas supply has fallen under the spotlight in recent years, as energy prices have soared and most European countries have moved away from importing from Russia.

Where we get our gas from – and how much of it we use – has a direct effect on the price of domestic gas and electricity.

In this guide, we’ll run through all the different countries that sell us gas, and explain the likely future of gas imports and consumption in the UK.

The UK’s gas sources: explained

The UK uses a tremendous amount of gas, most of which we import.

Companies on these shores have produced gas for decades, but they don’t churn out enough to meet demand – and they export 46% of their supply to other countries.

This leaves the UK needing to import 70.5% of its gas supply, according to calculations we made using the latest government data – most of which comes from Norway and the US.

Below, you can see all of the UK’s gas sources, and how much of our supply they provide.

1. Norway

Norway keeps the UK running, providing 41.1% of our gas from its state-owned reserves.

That’s 58% of the gas we imported in 2023, continuing a streak that’s seen the Scandinavian country supply the majority of the UK’s gas imports for 23 of the past 24 years.

It is, by far, our most important gas supplier – and fortunately, one of our most stable relationships in this field. Any rift in this alliance would be catastrophic for the UK.

Norway sent 98.4% of this gas through pipelines in 2023, with the remaining 1.6% shipped over in the form of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

The nation earned a total net profit of £9.5 billion in 2023 from its worldwide oil and gas exploits, which are majority-owned by its government.

2. The North Sea

The North Sea has provided the UK with gas since 1966, and it’s still going strong – for now.

In 2023, sites in the area produced enough gas to supply 54% of the UK’s demand, according to the latest government reports.

However, nearly half of that gas was exported – and we should get used to not having North Sea gas for too much longer.

The North Sea’s proven gas reserves – those with a 90% or better chance of being produced – have dwindled to 19% of what they were in 1996, according to our analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

There isn’t much more joy in probable reserves – which are more than 50% likely to be produced – or possible reserves, which have a 10-50% chance. Both have fallen to 10% of their 1996 levels.

The North Sea contains proven reserves of just 1,654TWh, meaning if we don’t cut our gas consumption from its rate in 2023, we’ll run out of this supply in less than eight years.

Even if all probable and possible reserves are fully plundered, we’ll still use up all our North Sea gas in 14.2 years.

The latest gas licences handed out by the government will have a negligible effect on this, especially if they follow the average timeline of 28 years from licence to production.

3. US

In 16 of the 17 years up to 2017, the US supplied the UK with zero gas.

Over the next few years, we regularly imported LNG from the US, at a gradually increasing rate – until the energy crisis hit near the end of 2021.

The next year, the proportion of gas imports we sourced from the US jumped from 7.5% to 22.4%, and it rose again to 26% in 2023.

These LNG imports from the Land of the Free have been crucial in eliminating the need for Russian gas and lessening our reliance on potentially unstable nations like Qatar.

4. Qatar

Our imports from Qatar have fallen in recent years, but it’s still our third-biggest foreign supplier.

In 2011, we sourced 39.2% of our gas imports from the Middle Eastern state, but this figure had dropped to just 6% by 2023.

That’s the lowest proportion of our gas imports we’ve received from Qatar since 2007, and shows that the UK is attempting to move away from relying on the controversial nation.

5. Peru

The UK started importing LNG from Peru in 2017, and more than doubled its intake when the energy crisis started.

By 2023, Peru was responsible for 4% of the UK’s gas imports.

The South American nation’s LNG is sourced at the Camisea gas fields, a contentious site in the Amazon Rainforest that’s been accused of spreading diseases to previously isolated indigenous people.

Peru exports most of the gas it finds there, and the UK is its biggest customer.

6. Angola

The UK started buying LNG from Angola in 2019, and now meets 1.3% of its total gas demand with imports from this southern African nation.

Angola’s LNG is entirely sourced from a coastal site in Soyo, in the north-west corner of the country.

Most of this gas is exported, the majority of which goes to the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Spain.

7. Algeria

Algeria is the UK’s oldest source of gas, including the North Sea.

We’ve been importing Algerian LNG since 1964, when the north African nation opened the Arzew Gas Terminal on its northern coast.

This LNG plant was one of the first in the world, coming two years before the North Sea started producing gas.

In the recent past, the peak in LNG relations between the two countries was 2006, when Algeria supplied 8.8% of the UK’s gas imports.

From 2005 to 2010, Algeria exported 64TWh of LNG to the UK – more than it sent between 2011 and 2023.

We’ve bought considerably more LNG from Algeria since the beginning of the energy crisis, though our imports are still nowhere near pre-2011 levels.

8. Six other countries

From largest to smallest supplier, the rest of the UK’s gas comes from Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Egypt, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Together, these nations provide 1.9% of our total gas consumption.

The UK only started importing LNG from Spain in 2022, after the start of the energy crisis, but has relatively lengthy relationships with the other countries.

Trinidad and Tobago has consistently exported LNG to the UK since 2005, Egypt has been a relatively minor supplier since 2006, and we’ve imported LNG from Nigeria since 2010.

At various points in recent years, Belgium and the Netherlands have provided the UK with substantial amounts of gas, but for the moment, we import negligible amounts from them.

The Interconnector, which has linked Bacton in the UK with Zeebrugge in Belgium since 1998, suffered repeated technical issues in 2023, leading to multiple shutdowns.

Where will the UK get its gas from in the future?

The UK has consciously moved away from relying on a handful of gas exporters in the past few years – a trend we expect to intensify.

As well as opening up relationships with Spain and Angola, the UK has also sourced LNG from Chile, Equatorial Guinea, and France at times in the past five years.

The UK will likely keep diversifying its supply, while continuing to rely most heavily on the deep, stable reserves in US and Norway, particularly as the North Sea’s reserves run out.

Thankfully, gas consumption in the UK is dropping, lessening our need for imports.

Demand has fallen by 36% in the UK since 2010, and it’ll continue to decline as the country moves to fulfil its net zero obligations by replacing gas with renewable electricity.

Will the UK ever stop needing gas?

Legally, the UK must move away from using gas.

In 2019, our parliament passed a government bill into law that fixed the UK’s commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

Achieving this target will require every government from now until 2050 to move towards an energy network that’s based on renewable sources, while phasing out fossil fuels like gas.

This will lead to the electrification of everything from industry and transport to heating, with heat pumps, electric vehicles, and manufacturing machines all running on green electricity that we’ll generate with the likes of solar panels and wind turbines.

Reaching net zero doesn’t necessarily mean wiping out all sources of greenhouse gases, as this may prove impossible. The UK will offset emissions from completely unavoidable sources – but that doesn’t include gas.

Its roles in industry, the production of electricity, and heating can all be replaced. The time of gas is coming to a close.

Summary

The UK gets most of its gas from Norway, the North Sea, and the US, in that order.

The North Sea’s supply is running low though, like many reserves – and as some countries run dry or move away from producing gas for environmental reasons, this will result in higher prices for everyone else.

Like all nations, the UK faces a choice: don’t address the issue and keep buying increasingly expensive gas from potentially unstable sources, or build renewable infrastructure like solar and wind farms.

Using our own green sources means reducing our reliance on imports, which will lower household energy bills and make us less vulnerable to geopolitical shifts.

UK gas sources: FAQs

Does the UK buy gas from Russia?

The UK doesn’t buy gas from Russia anymore.

In 2017, Russia started exporting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to the UK, sending an average of 21.8TWh per year over the next few years.

But after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the UK cut off this supply line entirely.

Why is UK gas so expensive?

UK gas is expensive because it’s heavily influenced by the wholesale price, and because the great majority of our gas supply is imported.

This situation isn’t likely to change, as the UK’s gas facilities are limited and rapidly ageing out of usefulness.

The UK needs to either replace them or import more gas, both of which could cost billions of pounds that will be paid for through rises in household energy bills.

And as long as the country relies on gas, customers will be left vulnerable to geopolitical turbulence and global gas price rises, as shown by the recent energy crisis.

Does the UK export gas to Europe?

The UK exports gas exclusively to Europe.

In 2023, the UK exported 175TWh of gas to Belgium, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland, and the Isle of Man.

Belgium bought the most UK gas, importing 61.4% of this total, with the Republic of Ireland second on 24.4%, followed by the Netherlands on 13.3%.