Russia’s gas pipeline gas exports to Europe surge

Russia’s energy giant Gazprom exported 23% more natural gas to Europe last month than it did in June 2023, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing its calculations.

The European Union was Gazprom’s biggest and most profitable foreign market before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Since then, Europe has been trying to end its energy links to Russia and Moscow tried to redirect deliveries to Asia.

Gazprom’s EU exports averaged 81.8 million cubic meters per day in June, up from 66.8 million cubic meters per day in June 2023, according to Reuters’ estimations of the company’s daily reports on gas transit via Ukraine and data from the European gas transmission group Entsog.

Overall, Gazprom exported about 15.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe so far in 2024.

Russia supplied 28.3 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe last year and 63.8 billion cubic meters in 2022. That’s down from up to 180 billion cubic meters sold to Europe in the peak years of 2018-19.

Gazprom’s gas sales to China increased to 22.7 billion cubic meters last year from 15.4 billion cubic meters in 2022.

Gazprom has not published monthly statistics since the start of 2023 and did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

In May, Gazprom exported 89.5 million cubic meters per day. Last month’s drop in exports was explained by the June 6-9 planned maintenance at the Turkish Stream undersea pipeline.

News.Az