Gas consumption in Russia is currently running at an all-time high but Moscow is still willing to boost supplies to Europe should it be requested, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has said.
Gas burning. Photo: Gherman Evseev / Shutterstock
Photo: Gherman Evseev / Shutterstock
Spot gas prices in Europe have skyrocketed by 800% this year as demand recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. Prices eased earlier this month after Russia, which supplies around half of the European gas demand, said it could deliver more. These extra supplies have not yet materialised.
"I want to underline that we in Russia have record high gas consumption figures this year, which is also due to active economic recovery," Novak said in an interview with the Rossiya 1 TV channel.
Read more: Ukraine slams Gazprom's Hungary deal, demands sanctions
Russia, which is already exporting record amounts of gas to the EU, has said that it must finish filling its own gas storage capacity before increasing supplies to the European spot market, which is expected to happen by the end of October.
Novak, who served as energy minister from 2012 to 2020 before becoming deputy prime minister, did not say how large Russia's gas reserves were but estimated that European underground storage facilities were short of around 25 billion cubic metres of gas.
He insisted high demand domestically would not stop Russia from offering more supplies to Europe if it received such requests.
Back to Homepage
Back to Energy & Utilities