The cumulative monthly natural gas consumption decreased by 28.2% in Portugal and 17.9% in the EU, between August 2022 and April 2024. These reductions resulted from common rules adopted by the European Commission, which set a voluntary target to reduce natural gas consumption by 15%, compared to the previous five years average for the considered months.

In addition to aiming to enhance the EU's energy supply security, the legislative initiative also sought to ensure independence from Russian fossil fuels. The impact on the EU was significant, with natural gas imports from Russia decreasing by 44.4% in 2022 compared to 2021. Nevertheless, Russia remains the EU's main supplier of natural gas (falling from 40.7% during the 2017-2021 period to 21.1% in 2022). In Portugal, the change was marginal (natural gas imports from Russia decreased from 5.0% during the 2017-2021 period to 4.3% in 2022), as the main supplier continues to be Nigeria (41.8% in 2017-2021 and 45.2% in 2022).

With the reduction in dependency on natural gas from Russia, other supplier countries have gained importance. Notably, the U.S. has gained relative weight both in Portugal (increasing from 13.0% in the 2017-2021 period to 31.7% in 2022) and in the EU (from 2.7% in the 2017-2021 period to 12.8% in 2022).

Another distinguishing factor between Portugal and the EU is the use of natural gas. In the EU, natural gas is mostly made available for final consumption (62.8%), where it is primarily used for heating (the household sector accounted for 40.6% of final natural gas consumption in 2022), whereas in Portugal, it is primarily used for new energy forms (63.3%), with natural gas allocated for final consumption mainly consumed by industry (66.4% of total final consumption of natural gas in 2022), and the household sector accounting for a much smaller share (16.4% in 2022).