Gazprom is being deprived of export earnings

Marcel Salikhov, Director of the HSE Center for Economic Expertise, commented to Nezavisimaya Gazeta about the EC's plans to reduce Russian gas supplies in 2022.

“The official plans of the EC provide that Russian gas supplies will be reduced by two-thirds (minus 100 billion cubic meters) as early as 2022. However, these plans are very ambitious and will not be implemented,” Marcel Salikhov said. He recalls that these plans are based on the fact that the EU will be able to increase LNG imports by 1 billion cubic meters. “However, there are no such free volumes on the world market. But, in the long term, the EU will reduce purchases of Russian gas in the next 5-10 years,” the economist clarifies.

The expert doubts that export earnings will suffer this year. “Even with a decrease in physical volumes of exports. In 2022, the average price of Russian gas exports will be in the region of $500-600 per 1,000 cubic meters, compared to $273 last year. Therefore, even with a 20% decrease in exports to the EU, the value of exports will be higher than last year,” Salikhov believes, not excluding that the physical volume of pipeline gas supplies from Russia to the EU will decrease by 15-20% by the end of the year.