Russia is racing to manage an escalating natural gas surplus after a dramatic collapse in exports to Europe. Once the continent’s primary supplier, Russia now faces a bottleneck of billions of cubic metres, prompting a pivot towards domestic consumption.
Between 2018 and 2019, Gazprom, the state energy giant, exported as much as 180 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to Europe. But following the invasion of Ukraine and rising sanctions, that number plunged to 32 bcm in 2024, according to Reuters data. With Ukraine halting all Russian gas transit this year, officials say volumes could fall even further, possibly halving to 15 bcm.
At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia’s Far East Minister Alexei Chekunkov described the situation as urgent. “Half a billion cubic metres per day used to flow West. Now it doesn’t,” he said. “We must decide what to do with this gas.”
Moscow is considering routing natural gas to power-hungry AI data centres, chemical industries, and cryptocurrency mining operations to counteract the surplus. BitRiver, Russia’s largest data centre operator, has proposed consuming up to 10 bcm per year of associated petroleum gas for large-scale crypto mining, according to Interfax.
Still, officials remain divided on the best use for the excess. Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin cautioned that natural gas is too costly to fuel data centres. Instead, he proposed building coal-fired power plants at existing mine sites. “Why use expensive gas when we can strengthen our coal sector amid sanctions?” he said.
Last year, Gazprom’s output hit 416.19 cm, recovering from a historic low of 355.23 cm in 2023. However, only 361.7 cm was sold, leaving tens of billions of cubic metres unused, trapped in pipelines, fields, or flares.
Russia’s gas surplus is a growing symbol of how geopolitical shifts reshape global energy networks. As Europe diversifies away from Russian energy, Moscow must now rewrite its domestic energy strategy, one terabyte and one tonne at a time.
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