Gazprom moves east as relations with Europe sour – Record supply to China

Gazprom delivered a record daily amount of natural gas to China on Sunday, while supplies to European customers remained at multi-year lows, according to Bloomberg.

The increase in exports to Asia is not a reaction to Moscow’s worsening relations with the West, but a sign of a long-term readjustment of energy flows that could accelerate in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Since gas supplies from Russia’s pipelines to China began in late 2019, shipments have grown steadily and are expected to reach at least 15 billion cubic meters in 2022, compared with 10.4 billion cubic meters last year. were delivered last year.

In February, as Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing, Gazprom signed a second deal to deliver an additional 10 billion cubic meters a year for 25 years through a new pipeline. A few weeks later, the company also signed a contract to design the Soyuz Vostok natural gas pipeline through Mongolia to China, which could transport up to 50 billion cubic meters per year.

Meanwhile, Gazprom has reduced deliveries to Europe. Some customers have been cut off after refusing to comply with the Kremlin’s demand that gas supplies be paid in rubles. Russia is sending less natural gas through pipelines to Ukraine and through the Nord Stream 1 link to Germany because of a dispute with Siemens Energy AG over gas turbines.

There is no direct physical connection between these two trends, the paper notes. Gazprom supplies natural gas to China from its fields in eastern Siberia, which are not connected to its pipelines to the west. But the company is working to build a pipeline that could one day allow it to redirect gas from its European neighbors to new customers in Asia.