BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan.16. In the third quarter of 2022, EU natural gas production reached approximately 10.7 bcm, falling year-on-year again, by 9 percent, (by 1.0 bcm), Trend reports citing the European Commission.
“In July and August, the actual quarterly production remained well below both the five-year range of 2016-2020 and 2021 figures as well, in September however, the monthly EU gas production (3.7 bcm) was slightly above the minimum of the five-year range. This does not seem to change the long-term dwindling trend of domestic gas production in the EU. Compared to the previous quarter, production went down by 1.7 bcm in Q3 2022, following the seasonal decrease in gas consumption during the summer period,” reads the Commission’s report.
The report reveals that in the biggest gas producer Netherlands the production fell significantly, by 13 percent (-0.6 bcm) year-on-year, amounting to 4.2 bcm in Q3 2022. In Romania, the second biggest gas producer in the EU, production decreased slightly, by 2 percent (-0.1 bcm) and reached 2.1 bcm. In Germany, gas production was also down, by 9 percent (-0.1 bcm). At the same time, gas production rose by 14 percent in Denmark, by 11 percent in Ireland, by 8 percent in Hungary and by 3 percent in Italy, but in absolute amount, changes in gas production remained below 0.1 bcm in these countries. In Poland, gas production went down by 2 percent (-0.04 bcm) in Q3 2022, year-on-year. In the first three quarters of 2022, gas production in the EU amounted to 35.9 bcm, down from 38.5 bcm (-7 percent) in the same period of 2021.
“It seems that even amid extreme high wholesale gas prices at the European hubs, domestic production in most of the European countries could not increase over the last few quarters, implying that there are technical and societal/environmental obstacles (e.g. depleted gas fields, significant resistance from the society for further gas production owing to damages in some countries, etc.) play more important role than economic profitability, which result in permanently dwindling production in the EU,” said the European Commission.