Russia's gasification level increases from 73% to 73.8% in 2023 - Novak

MOSCOW. Jan 25 (Interfax) - Russia's gasification level increased 0.8 percentage points in 2023 to 73.8%.

"Gasification of the country's regions remains a priority for the development of the domestic gas market. Currently, 78 of Russia's constituent entities are supplied with natural gas. At the end of 2023, the gasification level was 73.8%. The Russian President has set the task of bringing the country's gasification level to 83%," Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in Energy Policy magazine.

Russia's gasification level was 73% on January 1, 2023, Novak said one year ago.

The social gasification program has been underway since 2021. It allows for the free hookup of citizens' homes to gas supplies in gasified settlements. During this time, over 1.5 million applications for social gasification were submitted, more than 1.1 million contracts were concluded, more than 877,000 hookups were brought to property boundaries, and 485,000 new households were supplied with gas, he said.

In 2023, nearly 6.7 billion rubles were allocated in the regional budgets of 74 constituent entities to provide social support measures for several categories of citizens so that work could be done on their land plots, and gas equipment worth at least 100,000 rubles per household could be purchased and installed in their homes.

The social gasification program, as of November 2022, has become unlimited and extends to boiler houses that supply heat to educational and medical institutions.

Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Board of Gazprom , previously said that the company would allocate 270.3 billion rubles for gasification and post-gasification projects in 2024, which is an increase of 33.5 billion rubles over 2023.