Until five years ago, Russia still dominated the European gas market. Since then, Russia has turned its attention away from Europe and towards Asia. With China as its main customer, Russia could have completely offset its export losses to Europe in just a few years. An overview.
Europe was Russias most important sales market
In 2000, Gazprom still exported its natural gas almost exclusively via pipeline through Ukraine to Europe. At that time, the export volume was around 140 billion cubic metres per year. Russia produced a total of around 600 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year, mainly for domestic consumption.
In the following years, Gazprom’s export volumes rose steadily thanks to the full expansion of the Yamal pipeline (transit Poland) in 2006 and the NordStream pipeline from 2011 onwards.
By 2021, Gazprom’s natural gas exports to Europe via the four main pipelines, NordStream (Baltic Sea), Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod (Ukraine), Yamal (Poland) and TurkStream (Black Sea), and ramping up LNG exports had risen to a total of around 180 billion cubic metres. Russia’s gas production rose to around 700 billion cubic metres per year.
Asia did not play a significant role as a sales market for a long time
Between 2000 and 2010, Russia exported only small quantities of gas to Asia, mainly via existing pipelines to Central Asia and partly to China. LNG did not play a major role, with small quantities being exported to Asia from the Sakhalin-2 project.
Russia’s LNG production has risen rapidly in recent years, reaching a record high in 2024 with a total of 33.6 million tonnes of LNG (approximately 46 billion cubic metres of natural gas). Around half of this went to China and Japan in 2024, with the other half going to Europe.
Russia had already turned its attention to Asia in the middle of the last decade and never put all its eggs in the NordStream 2 basket. In 2014, Russia signed a long-term supply contract with China for the Power of Siberia pipeline, with a planned volume of 38 billion cubic metres per year from 2019 onwards.
Asia replaces Europe as the largest sales market
In 2025, the situation looks completely different compared to the beginning of the millennium. Russia has reoriented itself towards Asia and found ways to circumvent EU sanctions. Around 40 billion cubic metres of natural gas are expected to be exported to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline. In addition, almost 6 billion cubic metres of natural gas are to be delivered to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan via the Central Asia–Centre (CAC) pipeline.
Around 21 billion cubic metres could be delivered to Turkey via the BlueStream pipeline and strand 1 of the TurkStream pipeline. LNG production could result in natural gas deliveries totalling the equivalent of 50 billion cubic metres, more than half of which could be delivered to Asia.
Exports to Europe could thus amount to around 36 billion cubic metres with TurkStream and LNG deliveries, which is roughly on a par with the ‘Power of Siberia’ deliveries to China.
Gas exports to Asia could increase significantly
Supplies to China via Power of Siberia could be expanded to 50 billion cubic metres in the coming years. There have been repeated declarations of intent for the Power of Siberia 2 project for a long time. So far, no supply contract has been signed. If this comes to fruition, it could open up a new sales channel for Russia with an additional 50 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year.
The Far East pipeline to China is scheduled to go into operation in 2027 and be ramped up to 10 billion cubic metres per year by the end of the decade, with a potential upside of 2 billion cubic metres.
Thanks to the reverse flow introduced in 2023 on the Central Asia–Centre (CAC) pipeline, around 12 billion cubic metres could be sold to Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan by 2030.
Furthermore, despite all sanctions, Russia plans to significantly expand LNG production, in particular the expansion of the Arctic LNG 2 terminal, by 2030. The plan is to produce over 100 million tonnes of LNG, which would correspond to around 140 billion cubic metres of natural gas. Europe would then no longer play an important role as a sales market for Russia, with or without a gas import ban.