Russia’s exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the first four months of the year declined by 4.6% from a year earlier to 10.4 million metric tons, LSEG preliminary data showed on Monday, amid sanctions.

Russia has struggled to raise LNG exports in the face of U.S. restrictions over the conflict in Ukraine. Its new Arctic LNG 2 plant has been effectively frozen because it was unable to find buyers owing to Western sanctions.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he wanted the EU to buy more U.S. LNG and that he would make more of it available.

In April alone, Russia’s LNG exports fell by 9% to 2.5 million tons from 2.75 million tons in the same month a year ago, according to LSEG data.

Russia’s LNG exports to Europe in January-April declined by 13% year on year to 5.3 million tons, while supplies in April in this direction fell by 14.3% to 1.2 million tons, as sanctions on transhipment took effect in March.

Around 19% of Europe’s gas still comes from Russia, via the TurkStream pipeline and LNG shipments, and the European Union has a non-binding goal to end Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027.

Novatek’s NVTK Yamal LNG plant cut total exports in April by 1.8% year on year to 1.64 million tons. In the first four months of the year, supplies from the plant have been stable, at 6.6 million tons.

Sakhalin-2, controlled by Gazprom GAZP, exported 880,000 tons from the Pacific island in April, also relatively steady in comparison to the same month a year ago.

Exports from the project rose to 3.6 million tons year-to-date from 3.5 million in January-April 2024.
Source: Reuters