MOSCOW, January 13 (RIA Novosti) – Russian energy giant Gazprom said Monday that the supply of natural gas to Europe grew 16 percent last year to 162.7 billion cubic meters while overall gas production increased to 487.4 billion cubic meters.
“Gazprom has fully satisfied the increased demand for Russian gas in Europe. The increase in exports coincided with production growth by 400 million cubic meters to 487.4 billion cubic meters,” the company’s CEO Alexei Miller said in a statement.
“Our current production capacity allows us to produce 617 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually,” Miller said.
Gazprom’s natural gas supplies to Europe rebounded last year after a slump in 2012 in response to the cold weather at the beginning of 2013 and also due to a decline in gas supplies from Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, Norway, Qatar and the UK, according to Gazprom Export, the export arm of the Russian energy giant.
Gazprom Export earlier said the average price for gas in Gazprom’s European contracts fell by 5.5 percent last year to $380 per 1,000 cubic meters from $402 in 2012.
