Russia Is EU'S Energy Guardian as Cold Grips, Gazprom CEO Says

(Bloomberg) -- The bitter cold from Italy to Scandinavia has given Europe's biggest natural gas supplier an opportunity to highlight its importance.

“The deep freeze has shown once again that only Gazprom is capable of increasing gas supplies to European customers to maximum levels at a breakneck speed,” Alexey Miller, the chief executive officer of Moscow-based Gazprom PJSC, said in an emailed reply to questions. “There's no other supplier that could cope with the task.”

The state-run exporter ended February with record-high shipments to Europe, its main market. Russia has been boosting gas supplies to unprecedented levels as the region's demand increases and domestic production drops, leading to concerns it is using the fuel as a political lever to pressure critics and reward allies.

The recent cold snap that rattled energy markets across Europe boosted Gazprom's daily exports from Feb. 18 to Feb. 28 by more than 16 percent, or 99.2 million cubic meters a day. That's higher than supplies to Italy, Gazprom's second-biggest market in the European Union, according to Miller.

Overall exports to Europe last month jumped to 14.8 billion cubic meters, up 7.9 percent from a year earlier, Miller said. That doesn't include Turkey, which Gazprom usually adds in its data for the region. 

Gazprom's plan to build two new pipeline routes to the region, Nord Stream 2 under the Baltic Sea and Turkish Stream under the Black Sea, would increase the sustainability of supplies and the EU's energy security, he said.

--With assistance from Dina Khrennikova

To contact the reporter on this story: Elena Mazneva in Moscow at emazneva@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Rob Verdonck, Andrew Reierson

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