Gazprom is considering the option of not exporting gas to Europe via Ukraine after December 31, 2024 in its internal plan for 2025, Reuters reported on November 26.
Gazprom's plans for 2025 have not yet been approved by senior management, according to Reuters sources. The basic scenario of the plan is that Russia will not have a gas transit route through Ukraine next year.
According to the source, in 2025, Russian gas exports abroad, mainly to Europe and Turkey, excluding former Soviet countries, are expected to decrease by a fifth from this year's 49 billion cubic meters to just under 39 billion cubic meters due to the end of gas transit through Ukraine.
This projected export data takes into account gas supplies to Turkey via the TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines and does not include exports to China. Russian gas exports to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline are expected to reach 38 billion cubic meters next year.
Ukraine has repeatedly expressed its desire to end the agreement to transport Russian gas to Europe. Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly signaled its readiness to negotiate and continue gas transit through the pipeline. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ready to continue pumping gas through Ukraine.
The end of the agreement means the end of more than half a century of gas transit from Siberia to Central European markets that began during the Soviet era. Russian gas exports to Europe via Ukraine are a stable source of budget revenue. The Russian gas transit deal also brings Kiev transit costs of up to $1 billion a year.
Before the Ukraine conflict, Russia was Europe's number one gas supplier. Russia has lost almost all of its European customers as the European Union sought to wean itself off Russian energy and after the Nord Stream pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany blew up in 2022.
Since the discovery of major gas fields in Siberia after World War II, Soviet and post-Soviet leaders have spent half a century building an energy business that connected the Soviet Union, then Russia, with European economies.
The conflict in Ukraine and the Nord Stream pipeline explosions have all but destroyed the connection, damaging the economies of both Russia and Europe. Europe is now more dependent on gas supplies from the United States.
Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine have now fallen significantly. Russia will transport about 15 billion cubic metres of gas through Ukraine in 2023 - just 8% of the amount of gas Russia delivered to Europe via various routes during the peak period of 2018-2019.
The Urengoy - Pomary - Uzhgorod pipeline from the Soviet era carries gas from Siberia through the town of Sudzha - currently controlled by the Ukrainian military - in Russia's Kursk region. The gas from the pipeline will go to Ukraine and then to Slovakia.
About 14.65 billion cubic metres of gas will be supplied via Sudzha in 2023, equivalent to about half of Russia's gas exports to Europe. EU gas consumption will fall to 295 billion cubic meters in 2023.
