Russia's pipeline gas exports to Europe jump in June from last year

FILE PHOTO: A view shows the Gazprom logo installed on the roof of building in Saint Petersburg, Russia February 5, 2024. REUTERS/Anton Vaganov/File Photo

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian energy giant Gazprom's average daily natural gas supplies to Europe jumped by almost 23% in June from a year earlier, rebounding from last year's post-Soviet lows, although they fell 8.6% from May, Reuters calculations showed on Tuesday.

Exports were lower last month than in the previous month amid planned maintenance at the TurkStream undersea pipeline on June 6-9.

The calculations, based on data from the European gas transmission group Entsog and Gazprom's daily reports on gas transit via Ukraine, showed that average daily pipeline exports decreased to 81.8 million cubic metres (mcm) last month from 89.5 mcm in May, but they were up from the 66.8 mcm in June 2023.

Gazprom's natural gas exports to Europe this year have totalled about 15.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) so far.

Europe was once Russia's primary export market but now receives much less Russian gas as a result of the political response to the conflict in Ukraine.

Gazprom has instead boosted gas sales to China, which increased pipeline gas imports from Russia to 22.7 bcm last year, nearly 1.5 times more than the 15.4 bcm shipped in 2022.

Gazprom has not published its own monthly statistics since the start of 2023. It did not respond to a request for comment.

Russia supplied a total of about 63.8 bcm of gas to Europe by various routes in 2022, according to Gazprom data and Reuters calculations. The volume decreased further, by 55.6%, to 28.3 bcm last year.

At their peak in 2018-2019, annual flows to the region reached between 175 bcm and 180 bcm.

(Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by Susan Fenton)