Russia is seeking new gas markets in Africa as state energy giant Gazprom struggles to replace the European customers it lost following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilyov said Friday that Russia was ready to supply gas to African countries, as well as explore for deposits and develop any reserves it finds.
Speaking at Russian Energy Week, Tsivilyov said Russian companies could also offer a full range of energy infrastructure services.
“Our country can offer a comprehensive solution: modernize existing hydropower plants, build solar and thermal power plants, lay power lines, supply substations and transformers, and create power system management and dispatch centers,” he said, according to the state-run TASS news agency.
He added that Moscow views Africa as a “long-term market.”
Gazprom badly needs new customers after losing more than half its gas exports to countries outside the former Soviet Union since 2022.
The company is expected to export 77 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas this year, down from 185 billion in 2021 and around 200 billion annually in the late 2010s, according to Economic Development Ministry estimates.
The ministry forecasts that exports will fall to 72 billion cubic meters by 2028, after the EU’s ban on Russian gas imports takes effect, a level last seen in the second half of the 1980s.
President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to secure a new gas deal with China that would bring annual supplies to 100 billion cubic meters have so far failed to produce an agreement.
His Aug. 31 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek yielded no breakthrough, the South China Morning Post reported, citing people familiar with the talks.
Beijing wants to pay roughly the same price as Russian households — about $50 per 1,000 cubic meters — or, at most, the domestic rate for Russian industrial consumers of around $120-$130, the sources said.
Moscow, however, wants to use the price China pays for gas supplied through the existing Power of Siberia pipeline as a starting point, one source told the newspaper.
That price, at $250-$260 per 1,000 cubic meters, is already about 40% below Gazprom’s contract price of $420 for other customers outside the former Soviet Union.
Talks over the proposed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, which Putin has renamed Power of Baikal, are currently on hold because of the pricing dispute, the newspaper’s sources said.
This article was translated with the help of artificial intelligence and was reviewed by a Moscow Times editor before publication. Learn more about our newsroom's AI policy here.
Read this article in Russian at The Moscow Times' Russian service.
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