Russia's biggest gas producer said that a third of all European gas supplies this year came from Gazprom, despite the political tensions between Russia and the EU.
For the second year in a row, Gazprom (MICEX: Gazprom [GAZP]) reports a record-high market share in Europe, one of its main and most politically-difficult markets. Earlier yesterday, the company announced that it has managed to capture 33.5% of the European market in 2016, which is considerably higher than last year's result of 31%. According to Russia's Interfax, Gazprom supplied 179 billion cubic meters of gas to the European countries, as compared to 159.4 billion cubic meters supplied last year.
"Gazprom's market share is growing consistently and reached approximately one third of all gas supplies in Europe. We are also on track to hit this year an absolute record of annual gas exports, both of Soviet times and the history of modern Russia,” said the company in its annual bulletin Blue Fuel, as reported by Agence France-Presse.
Interfax Global Energy analysts report that the annual gas consumption in Europe for 2016 is expected to increase from 469 billion cubic meters to 488 billion cubic meters while gas consumption in Turkey is predicted to decline from 47.8 billion cubic meters to 45.1 billion cubic meters. This means that the European gas demand increased by approximately 5% allowing Gazprom to significantly grow its supply volumes, explained the experts.
Last year's result was also named the absolute record in the history:
"At the moment, we have reached the maximum historical market share of the European gas market at 31% and that number is constantly growing. The best confirmation of my words is the growth of our supply volumes to the countries of the European Union", said Gazprom's CEO Alexey Miller in September.
Agence France-Presse added that Gazprom continues the negotiations with the EU regarding the construction of additional pipelines, as the growing supply numbers only confirm that Europe "can't live" without Russian gas, claims the company. Over the last months, Gazprom has been dealing with a number of lawsuits with the Ukraine regarding the "unlawful" transit of gas from Russia to Europe over the Ukrainian territory.