Russia's giant Gazprom saw its natural gas exports via pipeline to Europe soar by 39% year-over-year in May, according to estimates by Reuters.
Last month, Gazprom's pipeline flows to European customers jumped to 89.5 million cubic meters, up by 7.3% from April and a 39% increase compared to May 2023, per the Reuters calculations based on data from European gas transmission group Entsog and Gazprom's daily reports on gas transit via Ukraine.
Gazprom stopped reporting monthly export data at the beginning of 2023.
Russia has seen its gas exports to Europe significantly reduced since the invasion of Ukraine. The major drop in Gazprom's gas deliveries was due to the halt of Russian pipeline gas exports to nearly all European countries. Weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Russia cut off supply to Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland.
Then Gazprom started to reduce supply via the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany in June 2022, claiming an inability to service gas turbine maintenance outside Russia due to the Western sanctions against Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. This was weeks before the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines at the end of September 2022, which definitively closed all pipeline gas routes of Russia's gas to Germany.
Before the war in Ukraine, Russia supplied around one-third of all the gas to Europe.
Last year, Gazprom's pipeline gas exports to Europe slumped by 55.6% compared to 2022.
As a result, Gazprom booked its first annual net loss in 23 years, signaling a significant shift in financial performance attributed to dwindling gas shipments to Europe and pricing pressures.
While Gazprom's May 2024 exports to Europe were higher than in the previous month and in May 2023, it's not certain whether these increased supplies would last.
For example, Austria's OMV warned the market last month that Gazprom could halt gas supply to Austria due to a foreign court ruling that could interrupt OMV payments to Gazprom Export.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More
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