This indicator analyses several aspects affecting the reliability of energy supply:

• dispersal of energy import by fuel type (import of fuels by country),
• the import dependency of a country by fuel type,
• contribution of individual fuel types to import dependency of the country (net import in relation to total energy consumption).

The indicator can be expressed in relative (the shares of individual sectors in final energy consumption) or absolute units. The unit used to express absolute values is thousand tonnes of oil equivalent (ktoe).

Slovenia imports the majority of the fossil fuels it consumes. For liquid fuels and natural gas, the dependency is 100%, while for solid fuels it was 22% in 2012. Domestic sources of solid fossil fuels are the Velenje lignite mine and the Hrastnik brown coal mine. In 2012, imported fossil fuels represented 51% in total energy consumption, which was 2 percentage points more than a year earlier, when the lowest share after 2000 was reached. An increased share of imported fossil fuels is a consequence of the fact that the energy supply decreased at a higher rate than fossil fuel consumption, liquid fossil fuels in particular.

Slovenia also imports fuel for its nuclear power plant, which is shown as domestic fuel in the statistics. In addition, Slovenia imports liquid biofuels, which are also shown as domestic fuel in the statistics. Slovenia imports liquid fuels from many countries. Here, it needs to be pointed out that the country of import is not necessarily the country of origin, as resale does occur occasionally. In 2012, the highest amount of liquid fuels was imported from Switzerland (33%), followed by Italy (28%), USA (11%), Austria (9%), United Kingdom (8%), Hungary (5%) and other countries with a share below 3%. In previous years, Cypress had the highest share.

Slovenia imports solid fuels from numerous countries. However, the share of the single most important country of import in total quantity of imported solid fuels is considerably higher than in the case of liquid fuels. In 2012, as much as 72% of solid fuels were imported from Indonesia. That fuel was largely used in the Ljubljana combined heat and power plant. The use of coal from Indonesia decreased in 2009 due to the beginning of co-incineration of wood biomass. Indonesia is followed by the Czech Republic, whose share increased markedly compared to the years before 2008. This is a consequence of the mixing of domestic and foreign coal in the Trbovlje thermal power plant, where only domestic coal was used previously. Other solid fuels are used in final consumption, especially in industry, while some are still used in households; however, the amount of the latter is so small that is it not recorded in the statistics.

The situation is most problematic with gaseous fuels, which became evident during the 2008/2009 winter. Russia and Algeria are the main sources of these fuels. A large share is also taken by Austria, which does not extract its own gas, but imports it mainly from Russia and Algeria. The same holds for Italy. When natural gas from Austria is evenly distributed between Russia and Algeria, the former contributes 63% and the latter, 37%.

In other words, Slovenia is highly exposed in the area of coal supply, where Indonesia is the largest supplier, representing 72% of all imported solid fuels; however, due to domestic production, the share in total supply with domestic fuels is low (20%). Therefore, this fuel is not problematic in light of the reliability of supply.

This means that liquid fuels are not problematic either, as Slovenia imports them from numerous countries. The provision of reliability in the supply of natural gas is much more problematic, where there are only two large suppliers – Russia and Algeria. This is also problematic at the EU level, where much effort is being put into expanding the selection of sources and improving their accessibility. Three larger projects are in progress: the Southern Gas Corridor (source: Russia, target: Austria and Italy, Ukraine bypass), Nabucco (source: Turkey, target: central Europe), and the Nord Stream (source: Russia, target: Germany, Ukraine bypass). Slovenia joined the Southern Gas Corridor project. In addition, efforts are being put into diversifying natural gas transport routes by using liquefied natural gas terminals.