Gazprom cuts exports 1% in week, ups supplies to domestic consumers
MOSCOW. Sept 23 (Interfax) - Russian gas exports to non-CIS countries fell 1.3% in the third week of September compared with the second week, when these exports were 1.1% below the first week of the month.
Gazprom has kept exports at 360-350 million cubic meters a day, the lowest levels permitted by contracts since major reverse gas supplies to Ukraine from Slovakia began at the start of the month, in order to try and put an end to the re-export of gas to Ukraine.
Russian gas transit via Slovakia continues to trend downwards, falling by 6% in the second week and 16% in the third week of September.
But these measures have only briefly succeeded in halting re-export from Poland and in sending up prices at the CEGH hub in Baumgarten, the closest to Ukraine, by nearly 20% to $323 per thousand cubic meters. Meanwhile spot prices at NBP, Europe's main hub, have even fallen slightly since the beginning of the month. Nor have reverse supplies from Slovakia been affected: they hit a new record of 27.013 mcm on September 22.
Gazprom, which is capable of producing nearly 1.7 billion cubic meters of gas a day, is officially attributing the minimum volumes being supplied to the EU to the need to fill its own underground storage facilities for the winter. The company is also producing a daily 1.04 bcm of gas, which is 250 mcm less than this time last year. Yet no apparent reason for the drop in output has been reported: there have been no major accidents, and the maintenance season at the company's upstream and downstream facilities has long passed.
While there might not be enough gas to export, gas has been easy enough to come by for the country's own market: those supplies have gone up by 100 mcm since the beginning of the month.