In Russia, natural gas production slightly decreased (approximately 547 billion cubic metres), so a slight, merely 1 percent decrease could be denoted in comparison to the previous year. In 2007 nearly one fifth of world natural gas production could be attributed to Russia, with which the country remained far the largest natural gas producer. The Russian natural gas export was altogether 180 billion cubic metres, denoting a fall of 2 percent in comparison to the previous year. Russia exported 30 percent of the total exploited natural gas in 2007.
The volume of Russian natural gas delivery towards Europe and Turkey slightly dropped, and amounted to the total of 147 billion cubic metres. A significant natural gas import was directed to the CIS countries following Europe. Among the CIS countries formerly the Ukraine was Russia’s primary trading partner; however, in 2007 already Belarus became the largest CIS natural gas importer. 50 percent less natural gas arrived in the Ukraine from Russia as a result of the reorganization of company structures and the amendments in the contractual terms and conditions on the import side. The Ukrainian gas import from the Central Asian countries was increased to counterbalance this shortfall.
In the United States, in 2007 production was characterised by an increase in comparison to the relapse in the previous year, the exploited volume amounted to 554 billion cubic metres. Through this, production increased by 4.3 percent in comparison to the figure of 2006. The presence of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico still creates an uncertainty factor in natural gas exploitation.
While natural gas consumption decreased in the United States during the previous years, in 2007 it reached the 6 600 billion cubic metres quantity. This meant a 6.5 percent increase compared to the figures of the previous year.
The United States natural gas import significantly increased in comparison to the previous years: while in 2006 the total natural gas import amounted to 115 billion cubic metres, in 2007 it was already at 143 billion cubic metres. A considerable part – about 118 billion cubic metres – of the imported natural gas still arrives through pipelines from Canada. So the vast majority of the annual natural gas production of Canada was transmitted towards the United States.
The majority of LNG supplies was realised within the framework of short term contracts. In comparison to the volumes of the previous year (16 billion cubic metres), the volume of natural gas transported to the USA in a liquefied form significantly increased and amounted to the total of 24 billion cubic metres in 2007. Two thirds of this gas still came from Trinidad/Tobago, while other important LNG supplier countries are Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria.
In the Far East/Pacific Rim region natural gas production rose again over the previous year’s level and reached 391 billion cubic metres (this is a nearly 5 percent increase in comparison to the previous year) and constituted roughly 14 percent of world natural gas production. In 2007 the largest gas-producing country was China in this region so Indonesia was beaten to the second place. Chinese natural gas production rose significantly by 18 percent in comparison to the previous year. Last year China produced 68 while Indonesia 66 billion cubic metres of natural gas.
In the countries of the Middle East, natural gas production (roughly 350 billion cubic metres) rose again - approximately by 5 percent. The largest producing countries in this region were Iran (111 billion cubic metres), Saudi Arabia (75 billion cubic metres), Qatar (58 billion cubic metres) as well as the United Arab Emirates (48 billion cubic metres). Qatar denoted the largest natural gas production increase, which was roughly 18 percent in comparison to the previous year. Almost one quarter of the natural gas produced in this region was delivered to other regions. In 2007 the largest LNG exporting country was also Qatar, delivering 38 billion cubic metres liquefied natural gas at the annual level, mainly into the Asian region. Qatar’s major trading partners are Japan and South Korea, which countries bought 10 billion cubic metres of liquefied natural gas each from the Emirate.
In Africa, natural gas production was around 189 billion cubic metres, the majority of which (84 billion cubic metres) was produced by Algeria. The 54 billion cubic metres Algerian natural gas export was primarily directed towards Europe - apart from the small quantities delivered towards the United States.
In Latin America, roughly 149 billion cubic metres of natural gas was produced in 2007, which meant another increase in comparison to the previous year. About three quarters of the exploited natural gas came from the three largest gas producing countries, that is Argentina, Venezuela and Trinidad/Tobago. Trinidad/Tobago has the most sizeable reserves and last year the country increased its exploitation by 7 percent in comparison to the quantity exploited in the previous year.