Exports of Russian natural gas to Europe to drop 4-5% on year in 2012

Moscow (Platts)--20Nov2012/548 am EST/1048 GMT

Russian exports of natural gas to Europe will drop 4-5% year on year in 2012, energy minister Alexander Novak told the Gas of Russia forum Tuesday, though he gave no concrete figures.

"We expect exports to reduce by around 4-5% this year," Novak said.

Also speaking at the event, president of the Russian Gas Society Valery Yazev said that in the first nine months of 2012, Russian gas exports to Europe fell by 1.5%.

Gas supplies to the CIS dropped 9% in the period, he said.

Yazev added that he expects exports of Russian gas to Europe to drop 4.3% year on year in 2012, as gas consumption growth there is stagnating.

Yazev said that Turkey was the only country in Europe to increase supplies of Russian gas, growing 10%.

Supplies to the UK and Italy respectively fell 5% and 11%.

Russia exported 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2011, up 8.2% year on year, Gazprom Export said in January.

Of Russia's total natural gas exports to Europe in 2011, western Europe got 112.03 Bcm, up 13.5% year on year, and 37.95 Bcm was exported to central and eastern European countries, down 4.8% from a year earlier, Gazprom Export said at the time.

--Nadia Rodova, nadia_rodova@platts.com
--Edited by Martin O'Rourke, martin_orourke@platts.com