Gazprom’s natural gas has no longer transited to Europe through Ukraine since January 1st. The five-year contract which has linked the Russian gas giant and the Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz since 2019 has expired after being maintained during the 34 months of war triggered by the invasion of Ukraine by its Russian neighbor.
The disappearance of 14 billion m3 of natural gas from the Central European market in 2025 calls into question all of Europe’s traditional natural gas suppliers, including Sonatrach, the third largest supplier in Europe since the share of Russian gas fell. from 150 billion m3 in 2021 to less than 40 billion m3 at the start of 2024.
The collapse of Russian gas imports into Europe since February 2022 should continue to benefit essentially the same gas players in 2025 after this further contraction in Russian exports since January 1. It is the United States which has supplanted Gazprom the most by more than doubling its exports to Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine, followed by Norway and Qatar, a major player in LNG.
The new cut in Russian deliveries, after the more significant one from North Stream in 2022 following probable American sabotage in the Baltic Sea, should only offer modest opportunities to Sonatrach to expand its market share on the Old Continent. This is due both to a low elasticity of the additional supply available for export and to more advantageous gas pipeline access via the northern European route for this part of Europe.
A foot in the Czech Republic
Algeria exported, in 2023, 52 billion m3 of gas worldwide, including 18 billion m3 of liquefied natural gas. Sonatrach has contained the decline in its exports over the previous decade thanks to the gradual arrival of production from the south-west gas fields (Reggane and Timimoun) from 2021, but must continue to face rapid growth in domestic consumption of natural gas.
The Algerian energy company, however, gained a foothold in this Central European market in two stages. First by becoming a supplier to Slovenia, a former republic of the Yugoslav federation from Italy, a historic customer of Algeria. Since November 2024, Sonatrach has been delivering 300 million m3 of gas to its new border partner in Italy. It then concluded an agreement to export, again via the northern extension of the Italian network, gas to the Czech Republic in anticipation of the cutoff of Russian supplies via Ukraine and Slovakia.
The first volumes of Algerian gas arrived in October 2024 in the Czech Republic. They remain modest, 2% of the country’s natural gas consumption, “enough to supply 100,000 households” according to the spokesperson for CEZ, the Czech energy operator.
The Slovak and Hungarian governments are the most exposed to the interruption of deliveries from Gazprom and a continued infiltration of Algerian gas into Central Europe cannot be ruled out in the near future for additional volumes ensuring greater diversity. supplies from these countries, traditional customers of Russia.
On Same Injar
