MOSCOW, November 24. /TASS/. The gas crisis in Europe resulted from a sharp LNG deficit, which provoked a price hike game by regional players, the department head of Gazprom Export, the export arm of Russia’s top gas producer Gazprom, Sergey Komlev said in an article for Gazprom’s in-house magazine.

"The situation on the market at the end of 2020 and in 2021 was connected with a sharp LNG deficit. It spurred a global game of higher prices for non-contracted, flexible LNG, driven up by regional players. Such a ‘gas poker’ game with raising rates resulted in the price of natural gas in Europe and Asia easily crossing the landmark of $1,000 per 1,000 cubic meters," he suggests. The surplus of LNG in 2020 and its shortage in 2021 "sharply exposed the problem of reliability of flexible, spot LNG supplies," according to Komlev.

"The Europeans’ focus on liquified natural gas as a source of diversification of deliveries has not justified itself," he noted. "In 2020 the collapse of spot prices below the level that covered operating expenses of LNG suppliers, pushed their deliveries to Europe down. More attractive prices in Asia starting the second half of last year reversed LNG carriers towards it, becoming one of the main reasons for the deficit on the European gas market," Komlev explained.