A gas drilling rig on the Gazprom PJSC Chayandinskoye oil, gas and condensate field, a resource base for the Power of Siberia gas pipeline in 2021.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/BloombergWhere Did All That Russian Gas Go?
Cut adrift from Europe, its biggest customer, the gas sector needs to find new markets. A $6.6 billion fall in state revenues from the industry points to the economic cost of the war in Ukraine.
Much of Russia’s existing gas export infrastructure points West. Unfortunately for Moscow, most of its gas customers are now to its East and a lot of the infrastructure it needs to supply them is yet to be built. This mismatch of pipelines and customers — which is likely to take years to resolve — forms part of a bigger question triggered by Moscow’s assault on Ukraine. The war has cut Russia adrift from Europe, its biggest gas export market. So what has Russia — which has the largest reserves in the world — done with all that spare gas?
In 2021, Russia pumped about 150 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas to Europe — more than enough to satisfy the combined annual consumption of Germany, France and Austria. Europe represented two-thirds of the country’s gas exports including flows of liquified natural gas. Since the Ukraine invasion severely dented that trade Moscow has sought new markets, expanded others and committed to provide gas to parts of Russia not yet on the domestic network.