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Russia’s Gas Empire Crumbles: Gazprom Exports to Europe Fall to 50-Year Low
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![Photo of Vlad Litnarovych]( "Photo of Vlad Litnarovych")
Russia’s once-dominant position in the European gas market continues to unravel, with Gazprom’s pipeline exports to Europe now plummeting to levels not seen since the early 1970s, according to Reuters on August 2.
Calculations based on data from the TurkStream pipeline—the only remaining operational conduit for Russian pipeline gas into the EU—Gazprom exported just 9.93 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to Europe between January and July 2025. That’s nearly half of the 18.3 bcm shipped over the same period last year.
If current trends hold, Gazprom’s total gas exports to Europe could shrink to just 17 bcm for the year, marking an all-time low since the Soviet Union began its westward gas push in the 1970s.
For comparison, the USSR exported 19.3 bcm in 1975 and surged to 54.8 bcm in 1980 following a landmark contract with West Germany.
At the height of Moscow’s energy dominance in 2018–2019, Gazprom delivered 170–180 bcm of gas to Europe annually.
But following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, those volumes fell to 28 bcm in 2023 and 32 bcm in 2024. This year, however, Russia lost its final link through Ukraine after Kyiv opted not to renew a five-year transit agreement that expired on January 1.
Though TurkStream flows have increased roughly 7% year-over-year, that modest rise is far from sufficient to offset the loss of Ukraine’s massive transit corridor, which previously had a capacity exceeding 140 bcm per year.
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Now, even with the world’s largest proven gas reserves, Gazprom is running out of buyers. Russian domestic production is falling fast, with Rosstat reporting a 3.2% year-over-year decline in total gas output during the first half of 2025. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) production also dropped by 5.2%.
Gazprom extracted 416.2 bcm of gas last year, but managed to sell only 355.2 bcm. The remainder—around 60 bcm—was left unsold, a volume roughly equivalent to the UAE’s entire annual gas production and three times the annual consumption of Poland.
Gazprom has not published monthly export figures since early 2023 and did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Earlier, the European Commission was set to propose legal measures in June to phase out the EU’s imports of all Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) by the end of 2027.
