UPDATE 1-Gazprom exports up 30%, price gap vs spot shrinks
Reuters
Published Apr 11, 2011 11:29AM ET
* Gas exports up 30 percent to 73 bcm in Q1 versus year ago
* Sales up 12 percent outside former Soviet Union
* Europe contract price 8 percent above spot prices in Q1
* Expects contract sales to rise as spot appeal fades
(Writes through, adds details, comment)
MOSCOW, April 11 (Reuters) - Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom said it had increased exports by 30 percent in the first quarter of 2011, including a 12 percent rise in its key European market, where prices turned in its favour.
Gazprom has been struggling to defend its long-term contracts against an onslaught of demands from clients for links to European spot prices, which plunged with demand after the 2008 financial crisis.
But recovering demand and the nuclear crisis in Japan have caused some customers to soften their demands.
"In the past year, spot prices in Europe have caught up with and even exceeded Gazprom contract prices," Gazprom quoted Chief Executive Alexei Miller as saying in a statement on Monday.
"If in January-March 2010 the average export contract price for Gazprom gas was about $293 (per thousand cubic metres) and exceeded spot prices by 50 percent, the difference between average spot and contract prices in the first three months of 2011 fell to 8 percent."
Gazprom's average European export price in the first quarter of the year was $346 per thousand cubic metres, it said, noting spot prices hit $400 and more in the quarter.
"The reality of Gazprom's future is an increase in exports across the board based on the existing system of long-term export contracts," Miller said.
(Editing by Jane Baird) (Moscow Newsroom, + 7 495 775 12 42, moscow.newsroom@reuters.com)
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