Russia’s Gas Exports Are Expected to Slide in 2023

Russia is likely to see some gain in gas sales to China and, potentially, to Turkey — now Moscow’s largest customers for gas. Russia exports gas to China using a pipeline called Power of Siberia, and it is angling to build another link. But at this point, China is just a fraction of the market that Europe used to be for Russian gas.

Europe’s strategy for reducing dependence on Russian gas and other energy sources has worked surprisingly well. Europe made up the losses largely through increases in imports of liquefied natural gas, largely from the United States, and by slashing demand. The European Union recently reported that gas consumption fell nearly 18 percent from August 2022 through March, compared with the average over those months from 2017 to 2022.

Europe has now survived what once threatened to be a difficult winter with little disruption, and that has soothed markets. European gas prices, which spiked in the early months of the war, have now fallen almost 90 percent from their peak last August. Those price declines will translate into lower revenue on the gas Moscow does manage to sell.

Russian oil revenue is also under pressure, dropping 29 percent in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the last three months of 2022, to about $39 billion, as sanctions and price caps began to bite, according to a study published Wednesday by the Kyiv School of Economics.

With this success behind them, European leaders are now contemplating widening their attack to include imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia.

Moscow last year substantially increased liquefied natural gas shipments to Europe, largely from an Arctic facility, while it slashed pipeline exports. Russian L.N.G. shipments to Europe reached record levels in February, according to Rystad Energy, a consulting firm.

But Kadri Simson, the E.U. energy commissioner, has urged members of the bloc and European energy companies to stop buying Russian L.N.G. and “not to sign any new contracts with Russia,” she told lawmakers last month.