(Reuters) – Europe’s gas market remains volatile amid tensions between Moscow and the West over Ukraine, a key route for Russian gas, as Gazprom, source for 40% of Europe’s needs, sends gas under its contractual obligations but does not add much more.
Following is a summary of key Russian gas export data and routes
EXPORTS
* Kremlin-controlled Gazprom had likely missed its target on gas exports to Europe last year as its total gas exports outside the former Soviet Union increased by 5.8 billion cubic metres (bcm) to 185.1 bcm. This included some 10 bcm exported to China, while it had initially planned to deliver to Europe 183 bcm in 2021.
This was down from record-high 201 bcm supplied to Europe in 2018, but still the fourth highest annually in Gazprom’s history.
* The completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany has annual capacity of 55 bcm and the operator says it can deliver enough energy to supply 26 million households per year. The project is still awaiting regulatory approval.
* Russia also raised gas pipeline supplies to Turkey by 63% in 2021 and to Germany by 10.5%. Exports have also risen to Italy by 20.3%.
* Gazprom’s 2021 total natural gas production rose by 62.2 bcm to 514.8 bcm, its highest in 13 years, while domestic gas supplies rose by 31.9 bcm to 257.8 bcm, more than half the total production.
KEY ROUTES
* Urengoy-Uzhgorod
Part of the Ukrainian gas pipeline network with annual capacity of more than 100 bcm. Supplies travel via Slovakia and Hungary.
Russia and Ukraine signed a new five-year transit deal on Dec. 31, 2019, with Russia pledging to ship 65 bcm of gas via Ukraine in 2020 and 40 bcm annually from 2021 to 2024.
Ukraine has refused to buy Gazprom’s gas directly since 2015 after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and pro-Russian insurgency in its eastern regions.
Gazprom cut its daily volume of gas transit via Ukraine to Europe to about 53 million cubic metres (mcm) in January 2022. The volume stood at an average 124.6 mcm in 2021, according to Ukraine’s pipeline operator.
Gazprom has rights to participate in auctions for additional pipeline capacity for transit via Ukraine.
Gazprom also did not book extra gas transit capacity for exports via the Sudzha and Sokhranovka crossing points into Ukraine for the second quarter.
Nor did it book capacity via the Velke Kapusany interconnection point on the Slovakia-Ukraine border for the April-June quarter.
* Yamal-Europe
Annual capacity is 33 bcm. The pipeline runs from the Arctic region of Yamal, rich with hydrocarbons, via Belarus, Poland and terminates in eastern Germany.
The route has been working in a reverse mode, shipping gas from Germany to Poland since Dec. 21.
Gazprom did not book capacity to export gas via the Yamal-Europe pipeline in the second and third quarter, as well as for February and March.
* Nord Stream
The operational pipeline runs via the Baltic Sea to Germany, with annual capacity of 55 bcm. Nord Stream 2, running in parallel to Nord Stream, which is awaiting approval from Germany’s energy regulator, would double capacity.
* Russia’s natural gas exports to Germany via the existing Nord Stream pipeline crossing the Baltic Sea totalled 59.2 bcm in 2021, in line with record volumes a year earlier.
* Blue Stream
This pipeline goes to Turkey via the Black Sea and has annual capacity of 16 bcm.
* Turkstream
Another Black Sea pipeline to Turkey, this has two lines with annual capacity of 15.75 bcm each. One line is designed to feed the Turkish domestic market while the other exports gas to southern Europe.
ELECTRONIC SALES PLATFORM (ESP)
* Gazprom set up the ESP in 2018 for gas sales to Europe in addition to the existing long and mid-term contracts. It sold more than 40 bcm of gas on the platform in the first two years.
* Gazprom Export, the exporting arm of Gazprom, has not offered natural gas for delivery on ESP since late August.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Katya Golubkova, David Goodman and David Evans)
