Russia’s gas giant Gazprom shipped 23% higher volumes of natural gas via pipeline to Europe in June compared to the same month last year, according to estimates by Reuters.
Gazprom’s pipeline gas deliveries averaged a daily volume of 81.8 million cubic meters (mcm) in June, up from 66.8 mcm in June last year, per the Reuters calculations based on data from European gas transmission group Entsog and Gazprom’s daily reports on gas transit via Ukraine.
Gazprom’s export volumes in June 2024 declined from the 89.5 mcm daily volume in May, due to maintenance on TurkStream in early June.
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.
The Russian gas deliveries in May and June were higher than last year’s low levels, but it is not certain whether these increased supplies would last. Uncertainty over Russian gas supply led to brief price spikes in Europe’s benchmark gas prices last month, after German energy giant Uniper terminated its long-term deal for Russian gas supply and OMV warned that Gazprom could halt gas supply to Austria due to a foreign court ruling that could interrupt OMV payments to Gazprom Export, without specifying the case.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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