The head of the Russian gas giant Gazprom, Alexei Miller, acknowledged on Wednesday a “very difficult” year 2022 for his group, marked by a major change in strategy, turning exports to Asia in the midst of a crisis between Moscow and the West.
Europe moves away from Russian gas
“I want to emphasize right away that 2022 has of course been very, very difficult,” Alexei Miller said during a year-end press conference.
The Gazprom chief said he noticed “radical changes in energy markets”, spurred by the fallout from international sanctions against Moscow in retaliation for its military intervention in its Ukrainian neighbor.
In 2021, Russia was, through Gazprom, the world’s largest gas exporter and the European Union’s largest gas supplier, but since then the 27 EU member countries have significantly reduced their imports, to the tune of less 10% of all its imported gas, according to Brussels.
For all of 2022, Gazprom, majority owned by the Russian state, “extracted 412.6 billion cubic meters of gas,” including just over 100 billion m3 destined for export, Alexei Miller said. This is one level lower than in 2021.
In a press release published on December 1, Gazprom announced that it had extracted “376.9 billion m3 of gas” between January and November 2022, that is, almost 20% less than in the same period of the previous year.
Exports to countries outside the CIS (the Commonwealth of Independent States, which groups several countries of the former USSR) had even fallen by 44.5% compared to the same period in 2021, to 95.2 billion m3.
Export development in China
Alexei Miller, in his speech, also hailed on Wednesday the inauguration on December 21 of the Kovykta gas field, a vast field located in Siberia that should make it possible to significantly increase exports to China.
Russia has been trying for several years to increase its gas supplies to the energy-hungry Chinese economy, and has accelerated this move in recent months amid international sanctions directed against it.
“Now the Siberian Force gas pipeline (connecting Russia and China) is in service for its entire length, more than 3,000 kilometers,” Alexei Miller noted.
Source: BFM TV
