Gazprom faces a very difficult situation
A glut of gas in Europe as a result of warm weather and high storage capacity is driving prices down to less than $100 per thousand cubic meters of fuel, putting Russian exporters in a difficult position. The negative trend will change only by the end of the year.
Vyacheslav Kulagin, Director of the Center for Energy Research at the Institute for Pricing and Regulation of Natural Monopolies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, announced this at a roundtable discussion in Moscow, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“A very difficult situation awaits us regarding gas. Everyone was preparing for a very difficult winter in terms of Ukrainian transit. All UGS facilities were pumped, LNG was additionally contracted, etc. The market was ready for this.
And when it turned out that there was transit, plus a warm winter, these volumes were not in demand. We didn’t even need to pump the contracted volumes through Ukraine in winter. This is a reflection of the market situation.
There is currently an oversupply of gas in Europe. It is clear that the situation will not improve in the summer. We were heading towards 100 dollars, we will see this, and maybe we will even “break” 100 dollars. And only by the end of the year can we expect some more favorable situation on the market,” Kulagin said.
Gazprom faces a very difficult situation.