Romania imported 962 million cubic meters of natural gas from Gazprom in 2020

The Russian group Gazprom exported last year 962 million cubic meters of natural gas to Romania, down 3.2% compared to 994 million cubic meters in 2019. Romania is one of the smallest Gazprom customers in the region, considering that Hungary imported 8.637 billion m³, Moldova - 3.04 billion m³, Bulgaria - 2.28 billion m³, and Serbia - 1.346 billion m³, according to Agerpres.

The only countries from Central and Eastern Europe with lower imports from Gazprom than Romania are Lithuania, Slovenia, Estonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and North Macedonia.

Overall, the Gazprom exports to Europe dropped 12.1% in 2020, up to 174.97 billion m³, influenced by the low prices and decrease in demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The biggest Gazprom customer in Europe remained Germany, whose imports decreased 14.3% in 2020, up to 45.8 billion m³. On the other two important markets for Gazprom, Italy and Belarus, the decrease represented 5.9% and 7.4%, respectively.

Gazprom reported mixed results in the other European markets, with large increases in exports to countries such as Slovakia(+34.6%), Greece(+25.1%), and Denmark(+10.5%), and decline in demand from Great Britain(-41.6%), Czech Republic(-37.8%), Serbia(-37%), Croatia(-34.8%), Finland (-34.5%), and Hungary(-17.9%).

European countries, dependent on the Russian natural gas resources

Gazprom, the top world producer of natural gas, provides a third of Europe's natural gas consumption. The company delivers the natural through 3 main routes: gas pipelines from Ukraine, Yamal-Europe route (through Belarus and Poland), and Nord Stream gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea, between Russia and Germany.

The pipelaying operations for Nord Stream 2 route began in 2018, with the aim of doubling the export capacity of the Nord Stream project up to 110 billion m³ of gas per year. The works were slowed down and stopped several times due to political pressure from the United States and economic sanctions for the companies involved in the project.

The Romanian companies importing Russian natural gas don't have a direct contract with Gazprom. They are working with Imex Oil, a branch of Russian group Conef, and WIEE, a Gazprom - Wintershall (Germany) joint-venture.

Photos: Gazprom