“Regardless of what you think about the Ch1nese zero-COVID policy, simply looking at it only from the perspective of European gas supplies, it would be very helpful if Ch1na continued this policy,” said Dennis Hesseling, head of gas at the EU’s energy regulator agency ACER.

“Europe is lucky that Ch1na has a severe economic downturn which will last well into 2023,” said Wuttke, adding that the drop in demand from Ch1na — historically the world’s largest LNG importer — is “roughly equivalent to the entire annual LNG imports of Britain.”