Europe
Putin says Russia ready to continue sending gas via Ukraine
Bloomberg
September 5, 2024
Europe has tried to wean itself off Russian gas since Moscow’s invasion, but some nations continue to receive it through those pipelines. However, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he doesn’t want to extend the transit contract with Russia. (Wikimedia Commons)
Russia is ready to continue sending gas to Europe via pipelines across Ukraine beyond 2024, according to President Vladimir Putin.
Europe has tried to wean itself off Russian gas since Moscow’s invasion, but some nations continue to receive it through those pipelines. However, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he doesn’t want to extend the transit contract with Russia.
“We don’t want them making money here,” he said in July.
Speaking in the keynote session of the Eastern Economic Forum on Russia’s Pacific coast, Putin said Moscow “can’t force” Kyiv to extend the agreement, but could re-direct those volumes to alternative export routes such as Turkey. While some of that gas could also be switched to the domestic market, Putin acknowledged that state-controlled Gazprom PJSC would lose revenues.
Gazprom, which all but stopped supplies to Europe in 2022 in retaliation for Western support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, posted its first annual net loss this century in 2023.
Now the US and its allies have toughened restrictions on Russian gas, an industry that was for long spared due to the significant role it played in firing Europe’s economy. The European Union will ban transshipments of Russian liquefied natural gas at its ports from March, while the US has focused on sanctioning future projects for the super-chilled fuel that could eventually boost Moscow’s energy revenues.
“We will resolve our issues, potentially with some losses, but we will do it anyway,” Putin said. Even if sanctions are imposed on all gas supplies from the nation, “prices will jump to the skies and yet our sales will still happen,” he added.
Putin also said that one string of the controversial underwater Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany remains intact after explosions destroyed the other conduit in September 2022. It would take “just one push of the button” from Germany to start Russian gas flows on that route, which can deliver 27.5 billion cubic meters a year, he said.
If Europe doesn’t want Russian pipeline gas, Gazprom will increase exports to other markets, according to Putin. Gas flows via the Power of Siberia link to China are set to reach annual export capacity of 38 billion cubic meters next year. Russia’s gas giant also plans to boost supplies to the Asian nation by another 10 billion cubic meters per year via the so-called Far Eastern route.
LNG Supplies
“In addition, we will develop gas liquefaction business,” Putin said. “They are trying to create problems for us here too, and Mr. Mikhelson knows this better than anyone else,” he said referring to Leonid Mikhelson, the billionaire chief executive officer of Novatek PJSC.
It’s the first time that Putin has publicly acknowledged the challenges that US sanctions present for Russia’s newest LNG plant, the Novatek-led Arctic LNG 2.
The US restrictions stopped the delivery of ice-ready carriers, delaying exports from Arctic LNG 2 for several months. Still, by amassing a small “dark fleet” of regular LNG tankers, Russia started exports in August.
Russia will continue expanding its share of the global LNG market, according to the president. “We will do this despite any difficulties that they are trying to create for us,” Putin said.