MOSCOW, December 28. /TASS/. Gazprom made no booking of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline transit capacity for Wednesday. The holding is not booking the next day pipeline capacity for the nineth day in a row, according to GSA Platform data.

The auction offered a pumping capacity of 89.1 million cubic meters per day, but they remained unclaimed. Gazprom will have next opportunity for booking pumping capacity for Wednesday at intraday trading at night.

Gazprom started reducing booking capacities from two weeks ago and halted booking on December 20. At the same time, since December 21, the physical gas flow over the pipeline is in the reverse direction from Germany to Poland.

On December 25, Gazprom's spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov said that a number of Gazprom's customers from Europe, in particular from France and Germany, had already chosen their annual contract volumes in 2021, so they were no longer submitting applications for the supply of gas

On December 23, President Vladimir Putin said that Gazprom does not reserve the capacity of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline because there are no applications from European consumers. In his opinion, the reverse supplies allow Europeans to resell gas purchased under long-term contracts.

The transnational gas pipeline Yamal - Europe passes through the territory of Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany. The design capacity of the pipe is 32.9 bln cubic meters of gas per year. The physical flow of gas to Germany through Yamal-Europe is formed as the difference between the renominations (revised pumping orders) for the supply in the forward direction and the opposite (reverse to Poland).

Situation on global gas market

The global gas market this year faced a supply crunch amid a sharp recovery in Asian demand and a shortage of LNG capacity. Higher gas demand in Asia pushed up prices and took the bulk of LNG supplies away, adding to the crisis in Europe, where the situation was aggravated by low reserves in gas storage facilities.

Due to this factor, the gas price at the Dutch TTF hub this fall exceeded $1,000 per 1,000 cubic meter mark for the first time ever and in December reached over $ 2,000 per 1,000 cubic meters. However, the price of a futures contract on the TTF hub is volatile due to the speculative factor and does not reflect the real price of physical supplies to Europe. The average gas export price under Gazprom contracts in 2021 will be $280 per 1,000 cubic meters.