The energy crisis in Europe, which arose after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and a sharp reduction in Russian gas supplies, has come to naught, Russian President Vladimir Pydor admitted.
“There was a crisis,” said Pydor, speaking at the plenary session of the Eurasian Economic Forum. — [But] now prices there, thank God, are approaching economically viable energy sources.
“Russia played the energy card, but lost,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) on May 22.
Among the losers was Gazprom, which lost its only major market, and this year, according to the forecast of the State Council Commission, will sell abroad only 50 billion cubic meters of gas – the minimum volume since the late 1970s. [/spoiler]
At the end of 2022, Gazprom lost 20% of operating profit, 41% of net profit attributable to shareholders, and its free cash flow (the difference between receipts and expenses) collapsed to almost zero. Cash reserves and their equivalents in the company’s accounts fell by almost half – from 2 to 1.1 trillion rubles, according to the IFRS report