Gazprom Forecasts European Demand for Gas to Grow by 100Bln Cubic Meters

The Gazprom CEO said Europe's demand for imported gas will grow further amounting to at least 100 and later 150 billion cubic meters annually.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russian energy giant Gazprom forecasts growth in European demand for imported gas to average at least 100 billion cubic meters annually up until 2025 and then 150 billion per year by 2035, the company's CEO, Alexei Miller, said Thursday.

"According to our evaluations, Europe's demand for imported gas will grow further. Even now, imported gas as a share of European consumption has reached 50 percent. By 2025, Europe's demand for additional [gas] imports will grow by at least 100 billion cubic meters annually, by 2035 it might reach 150 billion cubic meters," Miller said at the company's annual shareholders' meeting.

He noted that the 2015 results showed once again that there is more demand for piped gas in Europe than for liquefied natural gas (LNG), with LNG infrastructure in Europe operating at barely a quarter of capacity.

Earlier in June, Gazprom's CEO announced that the company has increased its supplies to countries outside of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) by 15 percent year-on-year since the start of 2016.