OREANDA-NEWS. Over the next decade, Europe may face a shortage of oil, which makes the movement towards low-carbon energy even more urgent. This was reported by the British newspaper Guardian with reference to a study by the analytical center Shift Project.

According to experts, oil production may decline faster than the dependence of the European Union on fossil fuels disappears, which increases the risk of a crisis and can lead to a serious growth of prices.

The study of Shift Project is based on data from the Norwegian consulting company Rystad Energy, which found that oil production in Russia and the countries of the former USSR, which provide more than 40 % of oil supplies to the EU, has already entered a state of “systematic decline”. In addition, Africa’s oil production, which accounts for more than 10 % of the EU’s fuel supply, is also expected to decline sharply over the next decade.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic also threatens to exacerbate the risk of oil shortage in the 2020s, slowing investment in new projects. According to specialists, in 2021 large oil companies will reduce spending for it by almost a quarter, by about 40 billion US dollars.