France and Belgium were the top buyers of Russian liquefied natural gas last month. The two countries imported LNG from facilities on the Yamal Peninsula and in the town of Vysotsk. These production facilities are operated by Russia's second-largest gas producer, Novatek. Russia's total LNG exports to the global market amounted to 2.914 million tonnes in November, up 9.3% year-on-year. However, Russian LNG exports to China fell sharply from 0.8 million tonnes in October to 0.1 million tonnes in November. In the first 11 months of 2023, Russia exported 29.1 million tonnes of LNG, down 2.5% from the same period in 2022. Since the conflict in Ukraine broke out, the EU has been aiming to wean itself off Russian LNG. However, this year, Russian LNG exports to the region have increased. Some European countries have even allowed Russian LNG to be transshipped or re-exported by their terminals. In the first nine months of 2023, the EU terminals that received the most Russian LNG were Zeebrugge (Belgium), Montoir-de-Bretagne (France) and Bilbao (Spain). The EU market is becoming more attractive because of significantly lower shipping costs from Yamal, said independent energy expert Aleksandr Sobko. According to the energy expert, the TTF gas futures contract for November deliveries is priced at or higher than spot LNG supplies to Asia on some days. Viktor Katona, an analyst at Kpler, emphasized that China's LNG imports increased in November. Thus, the diversion of Russian LNG to other markets is not due to weak demand in China, but rather to the growing attractiveness of the EU market. In addition, Japan and South Korea continue to buy Russian LNG from the Sakhalin-2 project under long-term contracts with Gazprom. Supplies to Japan in November increased by 22% year-on-year to 0.64 million tons. Meanwhile, Russian LNG exports to South Korea increased by 50% to 0.28 million tons.