Russia Is Losing The Energy Battle

“Russia has lost the energy battle,” Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told French newspaper Liberation in March, a year after Russia invaded Ukraine.  In the year and a half since Putin ordered troops into Ukraine and cut off natural gas supply via pipeline to many EU customers, Europe has managed to replace much of the piped gas with LNG imports, and has banned imports of Russian crude and petroleum products.  The U.S. has stepped up to fill part of the oil and gas supply…