Gazprom postpones its major projects on the Arctic shelf, according to data from the state registry for geological exploration.
Gazprom has made significant changes to its drilling plans in the Kara Sea. Currently, the company holds 11 licences there. Drilling on the Leningrad site has been rescheduled from 2029-2031 to 2033-2035. It has postponed work on the Obruchev site by four years: from the initially planned 2029–32 to 2033–36.
Drilling at the Nevski site, originally planned for 2032, has been postponed to 2036, and the Marine site has been removed from the schedule entirely. In the Barents Sea, where Gazprom holds licences for seven sites, work is also facing a four-year delay, shifting from the 2031–32 timeframe to 2035–36. This delay affects the Medvezhye and Fersmanovskoye sites, where three wells were initially slated for drilling.
The Moscow Times reported that Gazprom's decision to postpone its Arctic projects comes against the backdrop of a sharp deterioration in the company's financial position and stalled negotiations with China over the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline.
The project, which has been under discussion for nearly a decade, would have allowed Russia to increase gas supplies to China to 100 billion cubic metres per year. However, despite regular visits of the Russian President to Beijing, the pipeline has not received approval from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
According to the Financial Times, China agreed to buy gas from the pipeline only at domestic Russian prices—about $60 per 100 cubic metres—which makes the project financially unviable, in compliance with analysts at BCS Financial Group.
Last year, Gazprom recorded its first net loss in 25 years, amounting to $7 billion—a record for the company's thirty-year history.
Russian gas exports fell to 69 billion cubic metres, the lowest level since 1985, while supplies to Europe, once Gazprom's largest market, reached their lowest level since the late 1970s.
Gazprom reported a profit of 1.042 trillion rubles ($11.7 billion) in the first half of 2024. Its core gas business remained in the red: losses amounted to 480 billion rubles ($5.4 billion), or 2.5 billion rubles ($288 million) per day, according to Russian accounting standards.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister says that LNG production in Russia is planned to reach 100 million tons by 2030, which will enable the country to capture 20% of the global market.
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