29 June, 13:59
🧊 Russia’s gas giant Gazprom is facing a collapse — quite literally. Once the Kremlin’s economic spearhead and Europe’s largest supplier, Gazprom is now drowning in its own product: gas that nobody wants.
Export Collapse
📉 Since 2012, Russian gas exports to Europe have plunged from 200 to 30 billion cubic meters per year — an 85% drop. The much-hyped “Power of Siberia” pipeline to China was supposed to be the solution, but it covers barely a fifth of the losses. And even that volume came after years of humiliating negotiations, dictated by Beijing — not Moscow.
The Pileup No One Wants
⛽ As a result, over 60 billion cubic meters of unsold gas have piled up. Production continues. Storage is full. Buyers? Gone.
📦 Underground facilities are saturated. China isn't expanding purchases. Europe has walked away. Latin America is too far. And Gazprom doesn’t have the fleet or infrastructure to pivot.
💥 A gas bubble is forming — not figuratively, but physically. Prices are dropping. Supply keeps rising. Storage is maxed out. The pipeline, once a cash machine, is turning into a noose.
Market Reality
📊 TTF Benchmark Prices in Europe (€/MWh):
2012: ~25
2015: ~20
2018: ~22
2021: ~50
2022: 130–300 (crisis peak)
2023: ~40
2024: ~30
2025: ~28 (current average)
🔻 Prices have plummeted, returning to pre-crisis levels. Gazprom, meanwhile, has lost its market, its fleet, its hard currency inflow, its reputation — and its leverage.
The Paradox: Gas for the World, Not for Russians
📌 The cruel irony? Russia has more gas than it can burn — but ordinary Russians won’t see a drop of it.
🔥 Villages in Yamalo-Nenets still heat with coal. In Pskov, there’s no pipeline. Siberian schools rely on firewood. Why? Because the ruling elite would rather torch the surplus than let it benefit the people they've robbed.
Gazprom Is Not a Business. It’s a Blackmail Machine.
🎯 Gazprom was never about market efficiency. It was about power projection — blackmail disguised as business.
It doesn't know how to sell; it only knows how to threaten.
But here's the catch: no oligarch or FSB-linked executive will suffer from this disaster.
⛓ They’ve long privatized the profits and nationalized the losses. Gazprom’s failure won’t hit the elite. It will hit the poor — those same people who’ve already been robbed blind.
🧠 Forecast: Unless Russia finds real, diversified markets in the next 2–3 years (spoiler: it won’t), the entire gas empire will unravel — like a rusting pipeline in Siberian frost.
In the end, even natural resources rot under authoritarian rule. When the state becomes a mafia, pipelines turn into tombstones.