Russia Cuts Gas Export Forecast 10.7% as China Pivot Falls Short
Moscow's economy ministry now expects pipeline gas exports outside the former Soviet Union to drop to 72 bcm in 2025, reversing earlier growth projections.
Russia's economy ministry has cut its 2025 forecasts for natural gas production and exports while raising projections for oil, according to projections reported on Thursday (2026-09-24). Pipeline gas exports outside the former Soviet Union are now expected to decline 10.7% from 2024 to 72 billion cubic metres, reversing earlier expectations of growth.2
The revision confirms what the numbers have shown for some time: Russia's pivot to Asia is not replacing the volumes lost to Europe, and the economics are worse than Moscow hoped. Russia expects gas sales to China to be at least 27% cheaper than shipments to Turkey and its few remaining European clients, according to Bloomberg. That discount is baked into the relationship, not a temporary feature of early-stage contracts.4
Russian gas now accounts for just 18% of European imports, down from 45% in 2021, while the bloc's oil imports from Russia have fallen to 3% from around 30% over that period.2 Those are durable losses. Gazprom, the state exporter that once supplied more than a third of Europe's gas, posted losses of almost $7 billion in 2023 — its first annual loss since 1999 — after the rupture with the EU destroyed its main revenue base.2 The latest forecast cuts suggest no expectation of recovery.
LNG exports are seen edging up just 3% this year to 35.7 million metric tons, below prior estimates.2 For a sector Moscow has promoted as the engine of its gas trade reorientation, it is a thin gain, reflecting both sanctions constraints on technology acquisition and the difficulty of securing buyers in an oversupplied global market.
The oil picture is different. Russia now expects oil exports to reach 240.1 million tons in 2025, up from a prior estimate of 229.7 million tons.1 Export revenues for oil and gas combined were raised for this year to $206.1 billion from $200.3 billion, though the 2026 figure was revised down to $215.2 billion from $220.4 billion.2 The near-term upgrade reflects both volume and price, with ICE Brent crude front-month at $104.72 a barrel as of 2026-09-24.2
Russian crude production rose to 8.86 million barrels per day in June from 8.74 million bpd in May, according to IEA estimates on OPEC+ supply.5 But the IEA trimmed its 2026 and 2027 Russian production forecasts in July (2026-07-10), citing intensified Ukrainian drone attacks on energy infrastructure.5 The June production gain and the medium-term downgrade sit side by side without resolving each other.
ICE Endex TTF front-month held at €72.30 per megawatt hour as of 2026-09-24, unchanged on the day.2 European gas prices have absorbed the structural loss of Russian pipeline flows; ample storage and weak industrial demand are the dominant variables now, not Russian supply.
Gas production across Russia reached approximately 334.8 bcm in the first half of the year, down 3.2% on the same period in 2024, according to federal statistics data.3 LNG output fell 5.1% to around 16.5 million tons over the same span.3 The weakness is broad.
Power of Siberia exports are projected to rise more than 20% this year to reach the pipeline's maximum capacity of 38 bcm annually.3 That ceiling is less than half the volume Russia used to send to Europe via Nord Stream alone. New pipeline routes to China remain years from operation, leaving Moscow with no near-term volume lever in Asia beyond what Power of Siberia can carry.
One signal running against the bearish gas narrative is Urals crude, which traded at $107.23 a barrel as of 2026-09-24 versus ICE Brent front-month at $104.72.2 A Russian grade trading above Brent is unusual; since 2022 Urals has persistently traded at a discount. The premium points to tighter medium sour supply in the physical market, not a reversal of Russia's broader export squeeze. Diesel at $4.78 a gallon as of 2026-09-24 reflects that tension in refined products.2
Watch whether Power of Siberia throughput slows in the fourth quarter: if the one growing gas export channel stalls before reaching its stated capacity ceiling, it would signal that even the Asian pivot is underperforming the ministry's own projections. On oil, Urals differentials and the pace of Ukrainian attacks on export infrastructure remain the variables the IEA has already said will shape its medium-term Russian supply outlook.5