Russia Cuts 2026 Gas and LNG Forecasts as EU Phase-Out Nears

Russia’s economy ministry has lowered its draft forecasts for 2026 natural gas production and seaborne liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Neither figure predicts a decline from 2025. Instead, the draft points to a smaller increase than Moscow expected in May as a major export market approaches its planned exit from Russian gas.35

How much did the forecasts change?

The draft puts 2026 gas production at 683.1 billion cubic metres (bcm), down 5.3 bcm from May’s 688.4 bcm forecast but up from the 662.7 bcm produced in 2025. It puts seaborne LNG exports at 35 million tonnes, down 5.3 million tonnes from May’s 40.3 million-tonne projection but above 2025’s 30.3 million tonnes. The LNG revision is roughly 13% of the earlier forecast; the production revision is less than 1%. These remain projections from a draft document, not final 2026 results.31015

Why does Europe matter?

Europe has sharply reduced its reliance on Russian gas since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine: Russian supplies accounted for 12% of EU gas imports in September 2026, compared with 45% before 2022. Purchases have not stopped, however. EU countries imported record first-half volumes from Russia’s Yamal LNG plant in 2026.14

That remaining trade has an approaching deadline. The EU has approved an end to Russian LNG imports by the start of 2027 and pipeline imports by September 30, 2027, with a possible extension to November 1 if a country struggles to fill its gas storage. The phase-out helps explain the weaker export outlook, although the draft forecast alone does not establish how much of either revision is attributable to Europe.45

Can Asia replace European sales?

Russia projects higher pipeline gas sales to China after 2027, but it has also lowered its expected prices for those sales. LNG presents a separate problem: shipping it farther to Asian customers costs more, and existing contracts limit how much can be redirected. In March, an analyst estimated that at most 1.7 million tonnes of Russian LNG could be diverted from Europe to Asia during 2026. That was an estimate of available diversion capacity, not a forecast that the full amount would move.67

What does this mean for the budget and wider energy sector?

The revised gas figures are expected to feed into adjustments to Russia’s federal budget through 2029, making the export outlook relevant beyond the gas industry. A lower volume forecast does not, by itself, establish the size of any change in budget revenue; prices and the destination of sales also matter.156

Gas is not the only part of the outlook under pressure. Moscow has also lowered its oil-output expectations amid the war in Ukraine, with its draft 2026 oil forecast described as a 17-year low. That is a separate forecast, not evidence that oil-related disruption caused the gas cuts. Taken together, the revisions leave Russia projecting more gas output and LNG exports than in 2025, but with less room for growth than it anticipated in May.143