Russian pipeline gas exports to Europe rose 37% m/m in July, data shows
Turkey and the TurkStream undersea pipeline is the only transit route left for Russian gas to Europe after Ukraine chose not to extend a five-year transit deal with Moscow when it expired on January 1.
The Reuters Power Up newsletter provides everything you need to know about the global energy industry. Sign up here.
Calculations based on data from European gas transmission group Entsog showed that Russian gas exports via the TurkStream pipeline rose to 51.5 million cubic metres (mcm) per day in July from 37.6 mcm per day in June.
That was 4.7% more than July 2024 when they stood at 49.2 mcm.
Total Russian gas supplies to Europe via TurkStream stood at around 9.93 billion cubic metres (bcm) in the first six months of this year, compared to 9.3 bcm during the same period a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations.
Gazprom's exports to Europe in January-July last year amounted to 18.3 bcm, a figure which included volumes transited through Ukraine.
The company, which has not published its own monthly statistics since the start of 2023, did not respond to a request for comment.
Russia supplied about 63.8 bcm of gas to Europe by various routes in 2022, Gazprom data and Reuters calculations show.
That plummeted by 55.6% to 28.3 bcm in 2024, but increased to around 32 bcm in 2024.
At their peak in 2018-2019, annual gas flows to Europe reached between 175 and 180 bcm.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
36 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
73 Holyrood fat cats paid over £100,000 as satisfaction with public services falls
The number of Scots civil servants earning more than £100,000 a year has soared under the SNP, the Scottish Mail on Sunday can reveal. Taxpayers are footing the bill for a growing army of civil servants - many of whom are predominanty allowed to work from home - as satisfaction with public services plummets. Overall, the Scottish Government now employs an unprecedented 73 mandarins who are officially ranked as Senior Civil Service (SCS) - mostly heads of various departments and directorates. In total, this upper tier of civil servants now costs the public purse an astonishing £8.6m a year in wages, with the vast majority earning in excess of £110,000 - three times the Scottish average annual salary. Earlier this year the SNP administration's finance secretary Shona Robison slashed millions from the budgets for the NHS, mental health and transport, claiming Scotland was facing 'enormous and growing' financial pressure. Despite this, the number of senior civil servants employed to run the country has grown sharply - as has the cost. At the same time, the civil service has come under fire for its refusal to abandon 'working from home' and for a 'sick-note' culture in which government staff take far more days off than workers in the private sector. Critics have attacked the 'out of control' cost to taxpayers and accused the SNP Government of getting its priorities all wrong. Scottish Conservative spokesman for finance and local government Craig Hoy said: 'The civil service, and the cost of it, have ballooned out of control under the SNP's watch, and by far the biggest expansion has been in those on the highest salaries. 'When Scots are paying the UK's highest taxes, but seeing worsening services, there 's no excuse for fat-cat pay packages of this sort.' Callum McGoldrick, researcher at the TaxPayers' Alliance said: 'At a time when public services are clearly under pressure, it's hard to justify the steady growth in high-paid civil servants at the top of the Scottish government. 'With budgets being squeezed across the board, Scottish taxpayers will be asking whether ministers have got their priorities right. 'The focus should be on improving services for the public, not inflating the salaries bill in Holyrood.' The Scottish Government recently published its annual list of Senior Civil Service staff, reflecting the situation at the end of March. Overall there are now 73 SCS on a wage bill of totalling £8.6m. The number is higher than the 66 staff on six-figure sums last year, which had added up to a total wage bill of £7.5m. In comparison, there were 52 SCS on £100,000 in 2023, 38 in 2021 and just 14 as recently as 2018. The current list includes director generals of government departments - plus heads of directorates including Cladding Remediation, Covid Inquiry Response, Organisational Continuity and Heat In Buildings. The highest paid is Caroline Lamb, director general of the health department and head of the Scottish NHS, whose salary is listed between £205,000 and £209,000 a year. Four other staff are listed as earning over £150,000, including former Permanent Secretary JP Marks who took home £190,000 as the country's most senior civil servant before leaving in April to take up a new job as chief executive of tax agency HMRC. He was replaced by Joe Griffin, who in his former role as the Scottish Government's director general of strategy & external affairs earned £140,000 a year. The official responsible for the country's finances is director general of the Scottish Exchequer Alyson Stafford who takes home £160,000. The list shows a further nine civil servants earning between £120,000 and £150,000 a year. Most are director generals of departments including Communities, Corporate, Economy, Education & Justice, and Net Zero. Overall 45 officials earn between £110,000 and £120,000 a year - including the government's directors of Corporate Transformation, Digital, and Propriety & Ethics. Meanwhile the public are increasingly unhappy with the public services the government provides. A survey published earlier this year by research firm Ipsos shows almost three in four Scots (74 per cent) think public services in their local area have got worse in the last five years. Of those, 62 per cent believe the Scottish Government is mainly responsible for the deterioration. Half of Scots (51 per cent) say they are dissatisfied with the quality of health services, while 28 per cent are dissatisfied with the quality of primary and secondary education, and half (51 per cent) are dissatisfied with the quality of policing. The civil service has also been criticised for clinging to the working from home policies initially imposed in the wake of Covid. Since the pandemic in 2020, working from home or hybrid working has been the default option for many staff. New rules introduced to try and boost productivity mean that, from October, staff will have to turn up at the office at least two days a week. The figure is lower than the equivalent policy for civil servants working for the UK government in Whitehall, which states that civil servants must spend at least 60 per cent of their time working in the office. However the edict has sparked complaints from some Scottish civil servants about the cost of having commute more regularly to government offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Some have raised concerns about the environmental impact of driving themselves to work - while others have warned the order to return to the office is 'an attack on their human rights'. Separately it emerged in June that Scotland's civil servants last year took an average of 8.7 days off sick - the worst recorded rate of absence in the government's history, and more than double the rate across the private sector. Although levels of pay for SCS staff are reserved to Westminster, the size and hierarchy of the civil service in Scotland is a matter for the Scottish Government. Responding to the criticism levelled at it, the government argued that its senior civil servants brought valuable expertise - while also vowing to deliver 'optimum value' for taxpayers. A spokesperson said: 'Senior civil servants manage performance and delivery, and ensure the Scottish Government achieves its goals. They bring significant expertise and progress the government's plans for delivering on its Programme for Government. ' It also said its public service reform strategy will 'ensure every pound spent delivers optimum value' and will 'reduce the annual combined corporate costs of the government and Scotland's public bodies by £1 billion over five years'.
Daily Mail
36 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Warhammer chief queries his own £2m bonus
The publicity-shy boss of the company behind Warhammer miniatures and many video games has cast doubt on a new bonus scheme that has nearly trebled his pay. Kevin Rountree, chief executive of Games Workshop, earned £4.4 million last year at the fantasy figurine maker, up from £1.5 million the previous year. The pay bump, one of the biggest for a FTSE 100 boss, came as the Nottingham-based business entered the blue-chip index. Its shares have continued their stellar rise and are up more than a fifth this year to value Games Workshop at £5.3 billion. Last week it posted a 30 per cent rise in full-year profits to £263 million and promised to open more stores around the world after cashing in on the launch of Space Marine 2, a video game that is based on its hugely successful Warhammer 40,000 franchise, set in the year 40,000AD. Games Workshop staff shared a £20 million cash bonus pot worth £6,000 each, but it was the media-shy Rountree, whose picture has never been published, who was the biggest winner. He landed a 'one-off' bonus worth £2.2 million as a reward for his ten years running the company. Crucially, the award is payable in shares in three years if Rountree is still in the job and hits certain targets. This type of share-based deal is common among other big companies, but it is the first time Games Workshop has made such a payment since it was set up in a London flat in 1975 – and Rountree seemed unconvinced. 'The new policy is a big change,' Rountree wrote in the company's annual report. 'Time will tell whether it improves Games Workshop's performance and whether it is the right change,' he added. Rountree said he would continue to focus on 'what is right for Games Workshop and our long-term success, not on short-term gains'. Kate Marsh, who chairs the company's pay committee, admitted that such one-off payments 'can attract shareholder scrutiny', but felt it was now 'appropriate' when compared to other firms of a similar size.
Daily Mail
36 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
STRATEGIC EQUITY CAPITAL: Giving small UK firms the muscle to take on the big boys
Investment trust Strategic Equity Capital has a bold approach. It takes big stakes in companies it likes in the expectation that its judgment will be proved right, then rewards its shareholders with attractive returns. Although the strategy is not foolproof, the current manager is making a mighty good fist of it. Since taking the reins in September 2020, Gresham House's Ken Wotton has delivered shareholder returns in excess of 100 per cent, outperforming both the average for the trust's peer group and its benchmark index, the FTSE Small Cap (excluding investment companies). Wotton's modus operandi at Strategic is to seek out opportunities in the smaller companies section of the UK stock market – a sector Gresham knows intimately as a result of running numerous other funds focused on it. 'I look for companies with market capitalisations between £100 million and £300 million,' he says, 'and provided the quality and valuation are right, become one of the biggest shareholders.' This approach, he says, gives the trust 'muscle' to 'actively engage' with the companies it buys. He adds: 'At one end of the scale, engagement may be rather benign and just a question of supporting a company's management plans. 'But at the other, it may be helping a company find a non-executive board member or pointing them in the direction of a merger and acquisitions boutique if they become the target of interest from a potential private equity buyer.' The fruits of this strategy can be rewarding. For example, one of the fund's top-ten holdings is Inspired, which advises companies on optimising their procurement and usage of energy. Wotton had been a backer of the company before he took over the helm at Strategic, and made it one of his first new holdings for the trust. He then kept tickling up the stake, participating in the company's raising of new capital late last year to reduce borrowings. Inspired was then subject to a hostile takeover by Regent, an owner of gas and infrastructure companies. Strategic said it would not back the deal and put adviser Evercore in touch with Inspired. The result was the discovery of 'white knight' HGGC, a US private equity firm, which trumped Regent's 68.5p a share deal by offering 81p a share. The new offer is likely to be accepted in the coming weeks, providing the trust with a tidy profit. The £168 million trust has 18 holdings – a concentrated portfolio, especially given the top-ten stakes account for nearly 80 per cent of assets. Wotton describes the other eight positions as 'toe-hold positions,' the trust's 'pipeline'. Some of these, he says, could benefit from the cash received from the sale of Inspired. Wooton says mistakes are part of being a fund manager. 'If you don't make them, you're not taking enough risk,' But he adds: 'Risk can be mitigated by engaging with company management – which Strategic does as a matter of course – selling out, or ensuring you have an appropriate-sized holding.' The manager believes the trust's prospects are 'really attractive' over the next three to five years, although he admits the FTSE AIM market – where a majority of the trust's holdings are listed – has been undermined by Labour's decision to reduce the inheritance tax attractions of holding AIM shares. 'There has been a lot of forced selling of shares,' he says, 'and some have been derated.' Annual trust charges are 1.2 per cent, the fund's stock market ticker is SEC, and identification code B0BDCB2.
