Hallazgo: Representaciones Sociales, vivencias enmarcadas en diferentes contextos

Russia has not managed to achieve the levels of gas exports projected in the

strategic documents for the gas sector and pledged by Gazprom. According

to the General Scheme of Gas Industry Development until 2030, Russian gas exports were expected to reach 347–375 billion m3 _{of gas by 2015.}50 _{The actual}

volume of Russian gas supplies to external markets was lower by as much as 100 billion m3_{, mainly because of the drastic decline in exports to the post-Soviet}

countries, and especially Ukraine.

Ukraine, which back in 2006 imported around 59 billion m3 _{of gas from Rus-}

sia (a volume more than 10 billion m3 _{larger than the exports to Germany,}

currently the largest importer of Russian gas), used to be a key market for Gazprom in the post-Soviet area. However, Russian exports to Ukraine de- clined systematically, reaching a level of 25.8 billion m3 _{in 2013. In the af-}

termath of the political change in Kyiv, Russia unilaterally cancelled all the discounts previously granted to Ukraine and reinstated the high contractual price of US$ 486 per 1000 m3_{. This led to objections on the part of Kyiv, which}

demanded a replacement of the price formula stipulated in the 2009 gas con- tract with a market mechanism. As the parties failed to reach agreement, in June 2014 Russia completely halted gas exports to Ukraine and introduced a system of prepayments. Supplies were resumed after agreement was reached on the so-called winter package,51 _{but the interruption in supplies for nearly}

six months resulted in a decrease in the 2014 yearly volume of supplies to 14.5 billion m3_{. As a result of the diversification efforts undertaken by Kyiv,}

50 _{Генеральная схема развития газовой отрасли на период до 2030 года, http://www.en-}

ergyland.info/files/library/112008/7579b56758481da282dd7e0a4de05fd1.pdf

51 _{For more information, see: Sz. Kardaś, W. Konończuk, A. Łoskot-Strachota, Success? The}

Russia/Ukraine/EU gas agreement, OSW Analyses, 5.11.2014, https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/ publikacje/analyses/2014-11-05/success-russia/ukraine/eu-gas-agreement

O SW S TU D IE S 03 /20 17

in 2015 gas supplies from Russia decreased yet again to 7.8 billion m3 _;52 _{and in}

2016 Ukraine stopped buying gas from Russia altogether.53

Gas supplies to the EU member states have been a key export destination

for Gazprom and that has never changed during the last sixteen years.

The largest EU buyers of Russian gas include Germany, Italy, France and the member states of the Visegrad Group (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary). In recent years, (2013–2016) supplies to the British and Dutch mar- kets have been surprisingly high, mainly because Gazprom increased its share in the volume of gas bought by those countries from European intermediaries.

Turkey remains the largest non-EU market for Russian gas. The volume of

supplies increased by more than 150% in the years 2002–2015, from less than 12 billion m3 _{in 2002 to 27 billion m}3 _{in 2015 (in 2016 exports to Turkey decreased}

slightly to 24.7 billion m3_).

Figures on the volumes of Russian gas transmitted via the export pipelines and data on Russian gas exports quoted by the Central Bank of the Russian Federa- tion (see Appendix II) show that the share of Russian gas in external markets is lower than indicated in Gazprom’s statistics. That is because the latter show total volumes of gas supplied to individual countries, which often include some quantities of gas from Central Asia and small amounts of gas from Azerbaijan, as well as certain quantities of gas bought by Gazprom or Gazprom Export from trading companies operating in the European market.

The proportion of gas imported from Central Asia in Russia’s gas exports has de- creased considerably in recent years. Back in the years 2006–2008, the volume of such gas was 56.9–61.4 billion m3 _{a year, but in 2009 it decreased to 35.7 billion}

m3_{, in 2013 – to 28.5 billion m}3_{, and in 2015 – to 19.2 billion m}3 _.54 _{Gazprom has}

been losing interest in Central Asian gas (mainly from Turkmenistan) because of the changing internal and external circumstances. Some of the gas from Turkmenistan used to be supplied to the southern regions of Russia, which is no

52 _{For more information about Ukraine’s gas diversification, see: T. Iwański, Ukraine: successful}

diversification of gas supply, OSW Analyses, 3.02.2016, https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/ analyses/2016-02-03/ukraine-successful-diversification-gas-supply and statistics pu b li shed by Gazprom at www.gazprom.ru

53 _{For more information, see: T. Iwański, Ukraine: a record year for Naftohaz, OSW Analyses,}

8.02.2017, https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2017-02-08/ukraine-a-re- cord-year-naftohaz

O SW S TU D IE S 03 /20 17

longer necessary since Gazprom expanded its own infrastructure, enabling it to supply cheaper gas from its own fields (according to the Kommersant newspaper, in 2015 the price of gas imported to Russia from Turkmenistan was US$ 200 USD per 1000 m3_{, i.e. four times as much as the price of gas produced by Gazprom).}

Moreover, using the Turkmen gas to deliver on Gazprom’s export obligations also ceased to be profitable, mainly because of the dwindling demand and falling prices in Russia’s traditional export markets (and especially the drastic decline in gas supplies to Ukraine, which used to be one of the main buyers of the Cen- tral Asian gas re-exported by Gazprom).55

The decline of gas imports from Central Asia, the fact that the Central Asian states no longer depend on Russia for transit (in particular, thanks to the gas pipeline network enabling gas exports to China, built in the years 2006–2015) and the dramatic decline in gas exports to Ukraine all mean that Russia has lost an important instrument of political pressure in its relations with some post- Soviet states. The loss of the Ukrainian market has also been one of the principal external causes of the decline in Gazprom’s output.