Gazprom announced Thursday May 2, 2024 that it had suffered a record loss of 6.4 billion euros in 2023. The Russian giant is suffering from a virtual closure of the European market and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.
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The Russian giant Gazprom itself published this loss, the first for the company in 24 years. According to figures published by this leader in natural gas production, the net loss in 2023 amounted to 629 billion rubles, compared to a net profit of 1,226 billion rubles in 2022.
The main reason is that the global natural gas production giant is facing great difficulties due to Western sanctions imposed following the Russian offensive against Ukraine. The company, controlled by the Russian state, is experiencing a significant decline in its exports to Europe, which before the war was its largest customer.
THE sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, in September 2022, had preemptively caused an almost total shutdown of Russian gas deliveries to the European Union. The Gazprom group is also affected by the fall in gas prices on international markets.
Even if the company tries to find new customers, by redirecting its deliveries towards Asia, and in particular towards China, this cannot compensate for the loss of the European market. Gas transport infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming to build. Faced with these difficulties, at the end of 2023, the group had already planned to reduce its investments by 20% for this year 2024.
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