Europe and China Remain the Biggest Buyers of Russian Pipeline Gas

Despite cutting off most European customers from its pipeline natural gas supply, Russia still sends nearly the same volumes of gas to Europe via pipelines as it does to its key new energy market China, according to Bloomberg calculations based on gas flows.

Russia's gas giant Gazprom still exports natural gas via pipelines to Europe, via a link crossing Ukraine, and through the TurkStream pipeline. The customers are several countries in central Europe.

Russia has seen its gas exports to Europe significantly reduced since the invasion of Ukraine. The major drop in Gazprom's gas deliveries was due to the halt of Russian pipeline gas exports to nearly all European countries.

Weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Russia cut off supply to Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland.

Then Gazprom started to reduce supply via the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany in June 2022, claiming an inability to service gas turbine maintenance outside Russia due to the Western sanctions against Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. This was weeks before the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines at the end of September 2022, which definitively closed all pipeline gas routes of Russia's gas to Germany.

Before the war in Ukraine, Russia supplied around one-third of all the gas to Europe.

Now the sales have plummeted, but they hold on to levels comparable with Gazprom's pipeline gas supply to China, highlighting Moscow's failure to pivot its gas to its "friendly" geopolitical partner.

Russia's pipeline gas sales to Europe stood at 14.6 billion cubic meters in the first half of 2024, Bloomberg calculations based on flows via Ukraine and TurkStream showed.

While that's ten times lower than pre-war levels, it is still comparable with the 15.2 billion cubic meters of gas Russia sent via a pipeline to China, per Bloomberg's calculations. 

Russia's pipeline gas isn't sanctioned in Europe, where it remains flowing.

Russia appears to be struggling to convince China to take on more pipeline gas. Beijing is not committing to a massive new energy project to import Russian pipeline gas unless it's favorable for the world's second-largest economy.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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