Last weekend Putin proposed raising Russian gas exports to Europe by 60 million cubic meters per day to allow higher flows of liquefied natural gas to Japan, which is battling a nuclear power crisis after a huge March 11 earthquake.

Analysts questioned, however, whether more volumes were needed in Europe after Gazprom had already stepped in to cover the loss of 2 percent of Europe’s supply caused by the conflict in Libya.

“Gazprom has enough resources to accomplish Putin’s proposal on a swap operation in Europe,” a spokesman for Gazprom Export told Reuters.

“Gazprom increases gas deliveries through pipelines to Europe, so some LNG cargoes directed to Europe could go to Japan. If additional need of Japan will be confirmed our representative will immediately contact our European partners.”

Russia is the world’s largest natural gas producer but the lion’s share of its exports is pumped by pipeline to the European Union and Turkey, to which it exported 139 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas last year.  It has a single operational LNG project, Sakhalin-2, which is located close to Japan but whose annual production of 10 million tons is already largely committed under long-term contracts.

Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who has sweeping powers over the energy sector, has said Russia could ship an additional 200,000 tons of LNG to Japan in the form of energy aid.  Russia’s proposal to ramp up pipeline exports would require the support of the European Union, as well as a concrete need on the part of the Japanese, to be workable, Gazprom Export said.

Gazprom meets around a quarter of Europe’s gas needs, but its exports have been hit by the global recession and a glut of LNG from Qatar. It aims to claw back some of those losses this year by boosting exports by 15 percent to 152 bcm.

Industry analysts questioned, however, whether the need for extra European supply was actually there, with demand likely to taper off as the region emerges from the winter heating season.

“The winter consumption peak has passed and there is a gas glut,” said Mikhail Korchemkin of East European Gas Analysis.  Japan’s capacity to ramp up imports of LNG is, meanwhile, limited and analysts at Societe Generale estimate its incremental import needs at a relatively modest 5 bcm this year, rising to 10 bcm in 2012.

“Japan has neither enough regasification capacity nor storage facilities. This should be taken into account,” said Valery Nesterov, an energy analyst at Troika Dialog in Moscow.  The EU would be unlikely to rush into accepting a proposal that runs counter to its long-term goal of diversifying away from its dependence on Russian gas supplies, Nesterov added.  Among major European buyers of Russian gas, Germany’s E.ON said its needs were well covered by supplies from Russia, Norway, the Netherlands and domestic German production.

“The additional volumes which Putin mentioned for Europe are meant to compensate for lost LNG volumes to Europe,” said a spokesman at E.ON headquarters in Essen, Germany. “The Russian government will talk to the EU in this context.”