MOSCOW, August 13./ITAR-TASS/. Natural gas production in EU counties in the next 12 years regardless of possible development of non-traditional gas resources will decline by 43% against the 2013 level, Russia’s National Energy Security Fund (NESF) said on Wednesday.

Thus, over the next 12 years the EU gas resource base will be reduced by 70 billion cubic metres, which is comparable with the annual consumption of Italy and 2.5 times exceeds the supplies of Algerian pipeline gas to the European Union, the NESF analytical note says.

European Union’s own production at present satisfies only 35% of the internal demand. However, the EU now has only two net gas exporters: the Netherlands that in 2013 supplied more than half of gas produced in the EU and Denmark that has a rather low share of gas in its energy balance. Romania’s own production satisfies more than 80% of its demand, and the UK that in the middle of the 2000s had the status of the EU largest producer, last year satisfied only 50% of its internal demand.

Over the past three years alone, the EU gas production declined by 34 billion cubic metres (17%). However, in 2013, thanks to gas production increase at the major Groningen gas field in the Netherlands, as well as Croatia’s accession to the EU, the production decline stopped and even somewhat increased - by 300 million cubic metres against the 2012 level.

However, in 2015 the EU will produce a little less than 150 billion cubic metres of gas, by 2020 the production will drop to 115 billion cubic metres, and in five more years will decline to nearly 90 billion cubic metres. The UK production decline that will continue a little more slowly will be accompanied by the considerable decline in the Netherlands where by 2020 the gas production volume will decrease to 50 billion cubic metres.