A sharp drop in demand for Russian gas in Europe, the collapse in spot prices for gas hubs and the cash gap in the budget tens of billions of rubles – brought “Gazprom” to gas sales to yourself.
For the first half of gas supplies to the European Union fell by 8.9%, and since August the fall was double-digit in the first six days of the month it reached 22%.
To help “to Gazprom” came to a mysterious customer, buying about a billion cubic meters, reports “Interfax”: the gas company included in its statistics, although the supply has not fixed none of the pipeline operators.
The buyer of gas “Gazprom” became Gazprombank, told the news Agency sources in the industry.
The Bank, which the company is 35% owned directly and a further 47% through pension Fund “Gazfond” save graph export, which is bursting at the seams in all markets: in the first six months after European deliveries by 7.2% sales fall in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Gazprombank buys gas under repurchase agreements, equal portions of the transaction began in August, say sources of “Interfax”. The Bank repurchases the volume, which Gazprom has pumped into the European stores, overflowing them almost to capacity. This year, UGS has gone 11.7 billion cubic meters, more than double a year ago.
Selling gas to itself for the performance of a top-down plan becomes the norm for “Gazprom”. Similarly, the company acted late last year to report on the achievement record exports and overcome a lath in 200 billion cubic meters per year.
To sell abroad, this volume promised the head of “Gazprom” Alexey Miller, but by 27 December they managed to seize only 196,8 billion cubic meters. The solution was found: to 4.9 billion cubic meters, “Gazprom” sold their own “daughter” Gazprom Marketing & Trading, which confirmed the deal and explained it as the “carrying out of trading operations”.
In 2019 Miller predicted the export of “not less than” 200 billion cubic meters, but large customers significantly increased their purchases only Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic. Precipitous reduction in supply was recorded in Turkey, which declined from one third of the volume of Russian gas after earned the southern gas corridor from Azerbaijan. For the 6 months to Turkey was sold 8.1 billion cubic meters against 12.7 billion a year ago.
The average gas sale price was 13% lower than Gazprom budgeted (207 instead of $ 230-250), and the second quarter of the company ended with cash gap at 55 billion rubles.
By the end of the year hole in the budget “Gazprom” can grow to $ 7 billion, predicted in August, analysts at Sberbank CIB. The company needs 1,326 trillion rubles to the construction of numerous pipelines, even 246.9 billion rubles to be allocated for dividends. Operating cash flow can not cover the required amount either this year or in 2020-21, when the investment program will be and 1,065 1,251 trillion rubles, respectively, according to the Sberbank CIB.
To cover the deficit of the budget “Gazprom” will impact the attraction of debt: a plan for borrowing for the current year increased in 2.4 times – up to 725 billion rubles.
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