Russian natural gas production fell 14.1% in Q1 2023

Russia’s gas production shrunk by 14.1 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023, to reach 149 billion cubic meters, according to Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) announced on Wednesday.

The production fell in January by about 10.7 percent year-on-year to 62.7 billion cubic meters, but rose 6.4 percent in February year-on-year, the data released by Rosstat showed.

Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) production fell 2.8 percent last month year-on-year to 2.9 million tons, but rose 13.5 percent from February, while it decreased by 7.2 percent in the first quarter year-on-year to 8 million tons.

The data also showed that eight billion cubic meters of combustible natural gas (natural gas) were produced, which is 15.3 percent less than in March 2022, but 6.4 percent more than in February 2023.

Insider sources confirmed that the bulk of the decline in exports was from Gazprom, which owns about 15 percent of global gas reserves.