On Friday, Spanish outlet El Mundo reported that Spain increased the amount of Russian natural gas it purchased in 2023, as the imports appear poised to hit a historic high by the end of the year, according to data from the nation’s gas network operator, Enagas.

The report said that to now in 2023, the country has purchased an amount of gas equivalent to 60,770 gigawatts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia, which marks an increase of 43% over the same period one year prior.

Between January and October, the third largest supplier of LNG to Spain was Russia, as it supplied 18.1% of the nation’s overall gas imports. Only Algeria, (28.8%) and the US (20.1%) supplied more. Spain’s dependence on Russian gas has spiked six-fold since 2018, when Russian gas made up a mere 2.4% of Spain’s imported gas supply.

Despite repeated calls from EU officials to place sanctions on Russia’s gas industry, Russian LNG was never made subject to any of the economic sanctions imposed on Moscow over the war in Ukraine. One of the main ports of entry for LNG carriers in the EU, Spain has six regassification plants.

In addition to Spain, France and Belgium also boosted their purchases of Russian LNG this year, according to ship-tracking data. An earlier report by the Financial Times noted that as its imports of Russian LNG have increased, the EU has reselling over a fifth of its purchases from Moscow, using transshipment at its ports to redirect the cargoes to nations such as Japan, China, and Bangladesh.

The increased purchases of cargoes from Russia are partially making up for the massive diminution in pipeline deliveries of natural gas from Russia to the EU which mostly ceased past year. The decline began as sanctions caused a number of nations to refuse to pay for their gas in rubles, and accelerated as maintenance failures reduced flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. It culminated in the sabotage bombing which destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines, eliminating all flows to Europe.