ST. PETERSBURG, November 1. /TASS/. Western companies would prefer that Russian gas start flowing to the European market again, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller said.

"Western business circles would prefer that gas flows from Russia return. I would like to draw attention to the fact that traditionally Western countries always consumed more than they could produce. They cannot reverse this trend. It cannot be reversed, there are no such reserves," he said at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Gas Forum.

Miller also noted that Gazprom continues to carry out its plans despite foreign companies leaving Russia.

"I can say that, of course, Gazprom had a lot of projects which were implemented with our European partners in Russia. But the partners decided to leave these projects, and you know, nothing has changed. We continued to work [on these projects] and this has not stopped. The plans that we had, we are implementing them, regardless of the fact that even serious licensor companies have left," Miller said.

In the first six months of 2023, Gazprom supplied 166 billion cubic meters of gas to domestic and foreign markets, a 26.5% decline year-on-year.