Gazprom's pipeline natural gas exports to Europe slumped by 55.6% in 2023, after Russia cut off supplies to several EU countries and Nord Stream was blown up in the Baltic Sea at the end of 2022.
Russia's daily gas volumes via pipeline to Europe plummeted to 77.6 million cubic meters in 2023 from 174.8 million cubic meters in 2022, according to estimates by Reuters based on data from European gas transmission group Entsog and Gazprom's daily reports on transit via Ukraine.
Gazprom has stopped publishing data on its natural gas exports to Europe via pipeline after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Gazprom has reported a massive drop in its net profit for the first half of 2023 as deliveries to Europe plunged compared to the same period in 2022 when Russia was still supplying pipeline gas to its European customers.
The major drop in Gazprom's gas deliveries to key customers 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.
China has become a first-priority destination for Gazprom after the breakup with Europe.
Last year, Gazprom's chief executive Alexey Miller said that Russia could soon supply China with volumes of gas comparable with the volumes Moscow sent to Western Europe before the invasion of Ukraine.
Analysts doubt that Russia could boost volumes to China to such levels for at least another seven years.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com More
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Comments
Europe’s economy since the early 1970s was built on cheap and plentiful Russian piped gas
and Iam convinced that Europe will resume imports of Russian gas once the Ukraine conflict is settled.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Global Energy Expert