Gazprom warns Russia may see fuel crisis this winter

Moscow (Platts)--27Oct2006

Russia's Gazprom has warned that the country might see a repeat of the
last winter fuel crisis due to poor preparedness of the regions to the new
season and called for the government to interfere.
"The current unsatisfactory level of fuel stocks reserves in regions
raises a serious concern," Gazprom said in a statement late Thursday.
"This might lead to a repeat of event last autumn and winter when many
[Russian] regions were not ready to a sharp decrease in temperatures," it
said.
Industrial consumers have to be prepared to switch to alternative fuel
such as fuel oil and coal in case of extremely cold temperatures to save
additional volumes of gas to be channeled to satisfy increasing demand by
residential consumers, Gazprom said, citing a government resolution.
Last January, when overnight temperatures dropped to minus 37 Celsius in
Moscow and below minus 50 C in western Siberia, Gazprom reduced gas deliveries
to industrial consumers throughout the European part of Russia because of the
sharp increase in gas demand by residential consumers.
Italy, Poland, Hungary and Serbia all reported temporary drops in
natural gas supplies from Russia last winter as Gazprom struggled to handle
increased demand in Russia amid unusually low temperatures.
Due to low outside temperatures in the period from October 2005 to March
2006, Gazprom took 48.3 billion cubic meters of gas from its underground
storage facilities, up 11.8% on the year, the company said earlier this year.
In January 2006, Gazprom took 572.3 million cubic meters/day from the storage
facilities, an all-time high.
Gazprom now said it had pumped 49.5 Bcm into underground storage
facilities before upcoming winter, brining total gas reserves in the
underground facilities up to 63 Bcm, some 400 million cubic meters more than
it prepared for the last winter.

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