MOSCOW (Commodity Online) : World’s largest natural gas producer,Gazprom said Tuesday that gas consumption in Europe will fall a record 5-7 percent this year.

Speaking to reporters here Gazprom deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev however said depressed natural gas consumption will rise next year and the surplus of gas will disappear in 2011, boosting prices.



According to Eurogas, Europe consumed 517 billion cubic meters of gas in 2008.

Consensus forecasts predict gas consumption in Europe will reach 683 billion cubic meters in 2020 and 742 billion cubic meters in 2030, Medvedev said.

Gazprom plans to increase natural gas exports to countries other than former Soviet republics by 13% in 2010 as compared with this year to 160.8 billion cubic meters and foreign currency revenues by 18% to $50.3 billion, Medvedev said.

Russia exported a total of 174 billion cubic meters of gas in 2008, according to the Russian Federal Statistics Service. Gazprom is Russia's gas exporting monopolist.

It has been hit hard by the economic downturn as global demand for energy slumped. Medvedev said Gazprom expects demand in Europe to drop by some 5 to 7 percent this year in "a record-steep decline for the whole history of the gas industry.

In January-August, consumption in Europe dropped 7.5 percent to 30.4 billoin cubic meters, Medvedev said, quoting data from the International Energy Agency and Eurostat. He insisted, however, that the figures are still better than in 2007 and that demand will pick up significantly in 2011.

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