Gazprom may improve 2020 gas export forecast to 170 bcm

MOSCOW, Aug 31 (PRIME) -- Russian gas giant Gazprom may improve its forecast for natural gas exports in 2020 to 170 billion cubic meters, Andrei Zotov, head of a department at Gazprom’s export arm Gazprom Export, said in a conference call on Monday.

“The figures and expectations of gas offtake under our contracts that we announced after the first quarter adding that we were optimistic towards the third and fourth quarters, these expectations turned out to be true. That is why there is no reason to adjust our decline guidelines we gave in the first quarter. This is why, taking into account the August offtake that exceed 500 million cubic meters per day, we can be cautiously optimistic and say that we expect a slight increase of offtakes to 170 billion cubic meters this year,” he said.

“Speaking of the price, … the spread between the summer and winter sales is kept at U.S. $50–60. In the summer it ranged between $80 and $130, now it is between $100 and $160. It allows us to say that we don’t expect any serious changes to our forecasts.”

Alexander Ivannikov, director of the financial department, said that Gazprom’s exports to China amounted to 1 billion cubic meters in April–June.

“It is also worth noting that Gazprom delivered about 1 billion cubic meters to China through the Sila Sibiri pipeline in the second quarter at prices that significantly overshoot the European ones. Contribution of the Chinese market to the revenue and profits of Gazprom will become more and more significant as volumes of gas exports grow in accordance with the contract with CNPC,” Ivannikov said.

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