A total of 477 million cubic meters (cm) of Russian gas were sold by Gazprom Export‘s Electronic Sales Platform (ESP) on Thursday – a new daily record high, S&P Global Platts reported.
According to the company, sales on the ESP have soared since the start of 2020 as the Russian energy giant looks to offer out significant volumes to make up for the small sales in December, which were affected by uncertainty over the future of Russian gas transit via Ukraine.
Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz signed a new five-year agreement on gas transit through Ukraine on December 30, easing concerns of significant disruption to flows, with the Russian company agreeing to transit 65 billion cm via Ukraine in 2020.
The ESP sales Thursday were the highest since July 10, 2019, when Gazprom Export sold 406 million cm. Sales have averaged 225 million cm/d so far in January, easily the highest monthly average since the ESP started operations in September 2018.
The previous monthly high was an average of 121 million cm/d in July last year.
Total volumes sold so far this year are already 1.35 Bcm — almost double the total sales in December of 789 million cm.
According to S&P Global Platts Analytics, ESP sales are expected to stay high as Gazprom continues to ramp up flows via Velke Kapusany, as prices remain well above short-run marginal costs and flows remain below the average needed to meet the 65 Bcm of capacity booked through Ukraine.