Gazprom looks at Asia Pacific after China LNG talks stall

Following the stalling of Russian-Chinese talks on pipeline gas supply, Gazprom envisages to rely considerably on LNG exports to Asia, according to its CEO Alexei Miller. “The top priority for our eastern export corridor is production of LNG, which will be consumed by the Asia Pacific countries,” he said.

He expects fossil fuel demand to expand by 80% in the Asia Pacific region by 2030. However, Gazprom faces stiff competition from Qatar and Australia, but is nevertheless considering to expand its LNG production capacity by up to 60Mta.

Disagreement over pricing terms have led to a dead-end in the China-Russia talks, which had been on-going since 2006 with Russia initially planning to supply 68bnm3 of gas annually to China from 2015.