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demand from the world’s leading LNG consumer. Also, some European companies had existing long-term supply contracts with the Russians concluded before the war, analysts said. For example, France’s Total Energies has a 5.5bcm/year deal with Novatek, while Spain’s Naturgy has booked 3.4bcm/year. And robust Russian LNG supply to Europe looked set to continue this winter.
Russia will initiate construction of the Power of Siberia 2 and its Soyuz-Vostok segment in Mongolia shortly, President Vladimir Putin said on October 13 at the Russian Energy Week forum.
"We intend to expand the geography of our supplies. We will identify key infrastructural assets as early as in the near future and will start their construction, including such promising projects as the Power of Siberia 2 and its Soyuz-Vostok segment in Mongolia," the head of state said.
Efforts to join Asian and European segments of the national gas transmission system will start, Putin noted. Liquefied natural gas terminal projects will continue receiving support, he added.
The EU has already replaced two-thirds of its imported gas from the Russian Federation. The EU is ridding itself of its dependence on Russian gas faster than expected. In just eight months, European countries have found replacement options for two-thirds of the gas previously imported from Russia, said the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. According to the EC president, when RePowerEU was first proposed in March, the EU was highly dependent on Russian gas. She also noted that diversification has cost the EU very dearly, so she suggested increasing investments in European energy generation, primarily in renewable energy sources. In 2021, Europe imported 150bn cubic metres of Russian gas. Imports from other countries replaced part of this gas, and usage will be reduced by about 50bn cubic metres. Currently, dozens of gas tankers have gathered near the EU terminals. There is so much liquefied gas that there is not enough capacity for import and regasification.
President Erdogan said Turkey is now on board with a new gas hub based on an expansion of Turk Stream project, reports Kommersant, following a proposal a few days earlier by Russian President Putin to do just that. As a reminder, Gazprom has excess delivery capacity to the Black Sea coast for gas due to the now-defunct 63bcm South Stream project, which was to ship gas to Europe via Bulgaria but eventually replaced with the smaller Turk Stream project. Some 30bcm of redirected gas exports in 3-5 years: The original 930km, 31.5bcm Turk Stream pipelines took a bit over 2.5 years to construct, from May of 2017 to January of 2020. We think that a hastened project would likely require at least 6 months for design, pipe manufacturing, etc. before construction could start, even considering experience with the existing Turk Stream being used as a template to speed the process.
101 RUSSIA Country Report November 2022 www.intellinews.com