INTERNATIONAL: A tanker carrying Russian gas arrived at the Spanish port of Bilbao on Thursday,March 10. The Nikolay Urvantsev, sailing with a Hong Kong flag, docked on Thursday morning.

Despite the cascade of Western sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, one thing hasn't been affected so far, flows of Russian gas to Europe and the funds to pay for it.

Europe remains heavily dependent on Russian gas, which supplies around 40% of its needs, and is now worried that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use it to retaliate against sanctions. But Russia, which pumps gas through pipelines that cross Ukraine and other eastern European nations, requires the revenue, perhaps now more than ever.

So far there has not been any interruption of gas supplies.

Russia has been delivering gas to Europe to fulfill long-term contracts, according to buyers such as Uniper and RWE in Germany and traders in the Baltics.

In January, as tensions with Russia were increasing, Russian gas accounted for almost 6 percent of Spanish imports compared with 11 percent in December 2020.

But since last year, Russia has only been delivering the contractual volumes, saying no buyer had asked for additional volumes and that it didn't have much spare gas itself. This has caused prices to spike because, in the past, Russia was usually delivering extra supplies. Prices also rose because other major producers have struggled to deliver more gas amid very tight global markets and rising demand due to economic recovery from the pandemic.

^{PHOTO: VARIOUS OF THE NIKOLAY URVANTSEV DOCKED IN THE PORT OF BILBAO}