Gazprom Exports Beyond FSU Up 6%
Russian state-run giant Gazprom’s gas production increased by 7.2% on year to 364.3bn m3 from January to September this year, it said October 1.
Equally significantly, Gazprom's deliveries during that nine-month period to the ‘far abroad’ - hard currency markets that exclude the former Soviet Union - were 149.2bn m3 of Russian cubic meters (slightly less than a standard cubic meter) – which represented an increase of 5.8% year on year. It has yet to publish equivalent export data to FSU markets.
In particular, supplies to Germany during the first nine months of this year increased by 12.3% (up 4.7bn m3), to Austria by 33% (up 2bn m3), to the Netherlands by 40% (up 1.3bn m3), to Poland by 11.7% (+ 0.9bn m3), to France by 9.4% (up 0.8bn m3), to Hungary by 11.5% (up 0.6bn m3). Its supplies to Czech Republic and Denmark increased by 12.3% and 8.5% respectively.
For the month of September only, Gazprom supplies to Poland increased by 59%, to Hungary by 39% and to the Czech Republic by 23%.
Gazprom's full year 2018 exports to the European Union to be on track to beat last year's record level, markets expert Thierry Bros wrote in an NGW article early October 2.
Meanwhile Gazprom’s annual sustainability report said the current gas storage capacity in its 22 domestic and 11 non-Russian underground facilities totals 72.2bn m3, of which 63% stored inside Russia. The storage volume is expected to reach 75bn m3 by end-2018 and its maximum withdrawal capacity would be 812.5mn m3/yr.
Its proven recoverable gas reserves were 18.253 trillion m3 last year, or 72% of Russia’s total reserves. Gazprom’s reserves declined by 343bn m3 on year, the fourth consecutive annual decline, but its production has been increasing since 2015 and reached 472.1bn m3 in 2017.