Gazprom has significantly reduced the injection of “blue fuel” into European underground gas storage facilities.
This, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, is evidenced by data from Gas Infrastructure Europe.
Injection has decreased to the largest storage facilities located in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. It is noteworthy that Russian gas exports are almost at their peak for the entire period of supply, but the volumes go directly to consumers and not to storage facilities.
“Currently, gas injection into underground gas storage facilities in Europe is 30% behind last year’s level. The main reason is high prices, which go over $500 per thousand cubic meters and force consumers to choose suppliers more carefully,” Artem Deev, head of the analytical department at AMarkets, told Moskovsky Komsomolets.
According to him, the current situation is beneficial for Gazprom, since it allows it to make profits in excess of previously planned amounts: in the first half of the year, supplies exceeded 100 billion cubic meters. In addition, the expert says, Europe itself is convinced how much it needs Nord Stream 2: the sooner it is launched, the more EU countries will have the capacity to pump gas daily to their territory and the lower prices will be on the market.
In turn, Igor Yushkov, an expert at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, believes that Gazprom’s current actions are exclusively commercially motivated and are subject to the company’s internal policy.
“In general, it is more profitable for the Russian monopolist to sell gas “here and now” than to fill European underground gas storage facilities with “blue fuel”, losing money on this in the long term. Because in winter prices can drop to $400, but you will also have to pay for gas storage for six months,” says Yushkov.