Gazprom delivered a record-high volume of natural gas to domestic customers on September 30 as a cold snap gripped Russia, the Russian gas giant said on Thursday.
“The increase in gas consumption is associated with a sharp cold snap and the start of the heating season in many regions of the country,” Gazprom said, as carried by Russian news agency Interfax.
On September 30, Gazprom delivered as many as 1 billion cubic meters of gas through the Unified Gas Supply System, GCSS, beating the record from the previous day, September 29, when it supplied 982.1 million cubic meters of gas to Russian customers.
Gazprom’s domestic network of trunk gas pipelines covers the European part of Russia and Siberia up to Altai and Kuzbass. To the east, the gas supply is currently handled by autonomous gas transportation systems, which will be connected to the UGSS in the future, Interfax says.
While Gazprom is supplying record levels of natural gas to the domestic market, it has been struggling with sales in Europe, where only the TurkStream pipeline currently carries Russian pipeline gas to the west.
The EU is currently considering bringing the phase-out cut date for Russian LNG a year earlier, to January 1, 2027, from the initial plan to cut off LNG from Russia by January 1, 2028.
The EU’s proposed 19th sanctions package against Russia over its war in Ukraine, which contains this provision, will need unanimous approval from all EU member states.
With the EU shutting the door to Russian energy, Gazprom and the Kremlin are looking to China for boosting gas exports and revenues.
Last month, Russia and China signed a legally binding memorandum to move forward with a second major pipeline to carry natural gas from Russia’s huge Siberian gas fields to China via Mongolia.
However, key sticking points remain – including the price China will (be willing to) pay for the supply. It’s not clear who and how will finance the huge multi-billion-dollar project, either.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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