Kommersant: Gas production in Russia fell by 10 percent in the first quarter

Gas production in Russia fell by ten percent year on year to 180 billion cubic metres in the first quarter. Output at state-owned gas company Gazprom, which has a monopoly on gas exports from Russia via pipeline networks, fell by 18 percent. The Russian newspaper Kommersant reports this today on its website. Gas production is declining, it says, because of lower deliveries to Europe.

In March alone, production also fell by ten percent to 61 billion cubic metres. Production at its subsidiary Gazprom Neft recorded the same decline as Gazprom, at 18 percent.

At the same time, output from major independent producers Rosneft and Novatek is increasing. Novatek produced 20 billion cubic metres of gas over the same period, roughly one percent more. State-owned oil company Rosneft, led by Igor Sechin, a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, increased production by more than 70 percent in the first quarter to 19.7 billion cubic metres. It has thus overtaken Novatek to become the second-largest gas producer.