The cold winter forced "Gazprom" to empty its underground gas storages (UGS). Since the beginning of the heating season, the company extracted 45 billion cubic meters of gas from its UGSs.
Less than 20 billion cubic meters of gas remains now from 64 billion cubic meters of Gazprom reserves in mid-October . Last year, at the end of the heating season the gas monopolist used only 17 billion cubic meters from its UGS. There were two unfavorable factors which came together - a drop in demand due to the crisis and the Russian-Ukrainian gas war, and a warm winter.
Nevertheless the current gas production is very high, although the crisis in the industrial sector is not yet over. In order to beat the season's production record of 50 billion cubic meters of gas in winter of 2007-2008, Gazprom" needs to extract only 5-6 billion cubic meters of more gas in 45 days from its UGS.
The consumption of natural gas in January across Russia rose by 15 percent as compared to similar period last year. Gazprom even had to impose consumption limits on major industrial users in the Krasnodar region for a couple of days.
Monitoring department,
Kavkaz Center
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