“Future deliveries (to Europe) in absolute terms will remain, but the share of the European market in Gazprom’s external revenues will decline with the appearance of new clients and the growth in gas prices in Russia,” Miller told Gazprom’s annual meeting.
“This is a conscious element of our strategy.”
Gazprom failed earlier this month to close a deal to sell as much as 68 bcm per year to China via pipeline starting as early as 2015, but hopes to reach a deal yet this year.
That would make China a competitor to Europe for Russia’s gas resources, since the same fields on the Yamal peninsula which ship gas to Europe would also supply 30 bcm to China.
For its gas riches in Russia’s east, it is also planning to build a new liquefaction plant on Russia’s Pacific coast to enable seaborne deliveries.
“India, Korea and China, these are the countries where we are working intensively on concluding new long-term contracts,” Chief Executive Alexei Miller told the company’s annual meeting.
Gazprom, which faced rising competition from liquefied natural gas into its core European market, got a reprieve from pressure to renegotiate long term contracts and boosted sales when LNG cargoes were redirected to Japan after Fukushima.
Deliveries were up 26 percent in the first half of the year, Miller said.
