Europe has hidden the culprit of the explosions of the Nord Streams

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy studies of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the business newspaper Vzglyad on the economic damage assessment to the Russian Federation from the sabotage of the Nord Streams.

Russia has suffered economic damage from this crime.

"Until 2022, when the infrastructure of Nord Stream 1 was operating at full capacity, Russia provided a total of 140 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas supplies to Europe, of which 55 billion accounted for Nord Stream, which is about 40%," Alexey Gromov notes.

At the same time, it was no longer possible to transfer such volumes to other gas supply routes to Europe. Transit through Ukraine by this point had already been cut almost twice from 40 to 22 billion cubic meters due to the fault of Ukraine itself, which blocked the use of the southern branch of its GTS, retaining only the northern branch. And the Yamal–Europe gas pipeline running through Poland with a capacity of 33 billion cubic meters was banned by Russian law after Poland expropriated Gazprom's assets in the pipeline operator.

In addition, Russia has lost the ability to pump gas through the built Nord Stream 2, which is another 55 billion cubic meters of gas annually.

The Russian budget also suffered losses, as revenues from gas exports fell sharply.

"In 2022, we did not notice this, because full-fledged gas supplies were carried out until the summer. Secondly, there were unprecedented high gas prices on the European spot market, which was reflected in the cost of Russian pipeline supplies. In 2021, the average cost of Russian gas supplies was $ 300-350 per thousand cubic meters, and in 2022 it doubled to $ 700. Therefore, we had super profits and we did not notice a lost in money," the expert says.

However, in 2023, Russia has already felt full-fledged damage from both a decrease in gas exports to the EU and a decrease in prices.

"It can definitely be said that gas exports will never return to the levels of income that we received in 2021 before the start of the SVO. Gas exports to Europe were the most marginal, because the European gas market was and remains the market where gas is sold at the most attractive prices for the seller," the analyst summarizes.