As Gazprom’s natural gas exports and production drop, the Russian gas giant plans to have a record-high level of gas reserves in domestic storage during the next winter.
Gazprom on Thursday said that it expects its stocks of natural gas at Russian underground storage facilities to hit an all-time high of 72.842 billion cubic meters. The daily maximum capacity of the gas reserves is thus expected at 858.8 million cubic meters, says Gazprom, as carried by Reuters.
Gazprom has seen its natural gas exports drop in recent months after Russia last year cut off pipeline supply to many of its European customers.
Russia’s natural gas exports via pipeline to Europe fell by 11.4% between May 1 and May 15 compared to the average pipeline flows in April, estimates from Reuters showed earlier this week.
Russia still sends some gas via pipelines to Europe via one transit route through Ukraine and via TurkStream.
Between May 1 and May 15, Gazprom sent 67 million cubic meters per day of gas to Europe, down from 75.6 million cubic meters per day last month, as spot prices for gas in Europe fell to a 21-month low.
Last month, Russian gas deliveries to Europe rose by 7.5% compared to March, due to higher volumes shipped in transit via Turkey, according to Reuters calculations from earlier this month.
Gazprom has stopped publishing numbers on its gas deliveries to Europe.
Russia halted gas supply to Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland in April and May 2022, slashed gas deliveries via Nord Stream to Germany in June, then cut off Nord Stream supply in early September, weeks before the still mysterious sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea at the end of September.
Germany, Russia’s biggest customer of gas before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, doesn’t import any Russian gas via pipeline now. Norway became Germany’s single-largest natural gas supplier in 2022, overtaking Russia, as total German gas imports dropped by 12.3% compared to 2021.