Brussels, 10/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - The Russian gas giant, Gazprom, is pledging to step up its exports to Europe in 2012, in addition to its underground gas storage (UGS) facilities on the European continent.
Gazprom plans to export 154 billion m3 of gas to Europe in 2012, compared to 150 billion m3 in 2011, according to an article intended for investors and distributed by Russian press agencies on Friday 10 February. These forecasts come at a time when the Russian gas company has been unable to step up deliveries to EU countries affected by the cold spell as it first and foremost feels it should meet the needs of the Russian domestic market, which is also facing abnormally cold weather conditions. In early February, Gazprom reduced its gas supplies to the EU for several days, causing a clear reduction in deliveries to Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Supplies have since returned to normal.
In a press release also published on 10 February, the deputy chairman of the Gazprom management committee, Alexander Medvedev, gave his assurance that his company would “manage to maintain stable and secure gas supplies to European customers, and this is achieved largely due to the use of underground gas storage facilities (UGS)”. During the peak demand period, Gazprom has been extracting gas from its UGS located in Europe (Germany, Austria and Serbia) to the “maximum possible level”, i.e. over 38 million m3daily, Medvedev argued. In order to ensure export security of Russian gas and strengthen its underground storage facilities in Europe, Gazprom intends to increase UGS capacity to 5 million m3 by 2015, he promised. Medvedev went on to conclude: “The lesson of fulfilling the soared requests for gas among the European clients this winter amounts to the fact that Gazprom's strategy aimed at creating a network of UGS facilities close to end consumers and main export routes has been proven effective and intelligent. Gazprom has an interest in having large UGS facilities in Europe at its disposal for the prime reason of meeting obligations under export supply contracts and in order to ensure timely and scrupulous shipment of natural gas to European clients. We would like to believe that European regulatory bodies would take this rationale into account.” (EH/transl.jl)