Yuri Kobzar19:36, 06/16/24

The paradoxes of the gas empire lie in the fact that the population is heated with wood and coal, although there is literally nowhere to put the gas.

Russians are heated, as in ancient times, although they live on gas reserves / photo 
ua.depositphotos.com

Russia’s Gazprom has suffered record losses and is forced to shut down wells after losing the European market due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Against this background, residents of the Russian outback are forced to heat themselves with wood and coal, and can only dream of gas heating, Radio Liberty reports .

“We live like in the old days,” said a resident of the small town of Minusinsk somewhere in the middle of Siberia, describing how he heats his house with buckets of coal. “It’s terrible to run out into the cold to fetch it, but what can I do? We’re helpless.”

Although Russia is a world leader in natural gas production, millions of residents in its coldest, easternmost regions remain unconnected to gas pipelines. And Russia’s costly war against neighboring Ukraine is eliminating any chance that that will soon change.

“I would pay for gas. But how much? There are no gas pipelines. There is no infrastructure. There is no cost estimate for the consumer. We don’t even dream of gas,” added an elderly man from Minusinsk.

As Radio Liberty notes, connecting consumers in Siberia and the Far East to gas pipelines has been a dream since Soviet times. Putin made this promise during his 2004 election campaign and was regularly asked about it during his “direct lines with the people.” However, connection rates remain scanty: 1% in the Irkutsk region and even less in Khakassia, Tyva and most of the Krasnodar Territory.

The direct executor of gasification work should have been Gazprom, but given its losses due to the war, now it does not have the money for this.

A resident of Krasnoyarsk found an interesting parallel. He recalled that the government has been building a metro in the city with mere promises since 1995.

“You see how they “build” us a metro and “bring” gas to us. We are a city with a million people, a region that sends more money to Moscow than it receives. We pump gas to China, but we ourselves breathe coal smoke,” – he said.

Insane losses of Gazprom

As UNIAN wrote, having lost the European gas market, the Russian Gazprom was unable to agree on supplies to China and was forced to reduce production to the minimum in the entire history of the company.

As the company’s statistical reporting shows, in 2023 the total gas production by Gazprom’s structures amounted to 359 billion cubic meters, which is the worst indicator in all 34 years of the company’s existence.

(C)UNIAN 2024

In addition, for the first time since the late 1990s, Gazprom ended the year without a net profit. Moreover, the company suffered not just losses, but record losses in its entire history – 629 billion rubles.