According to a new report in the business daily Kommersant this week which quotes official data, for the fourth month in a row in November, Russia’s natural gas production has continued to grow, reaching almost 60 billion cubic meters.

According to the newspaper, new data from the Energy Ministry shows that there was a 6.4% increase in the figure compared to November of 2022. Analysts attributed the growth to the low base effect of last year, when the elimination of gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline lowered production volumes.

According to Kommersant, the growth in output last month was due to increases in production by state-run energy major Gazprom. Additionally, there was an increase in the output of the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project in the Far East of Russia, according to the statistics.

Overall, Russia’s gas production saw its total volume decline by 3% for the period from January to November of 2023, in annual terms, to nearly 595 billion cubic meters. This was largely due to the large volumes which were exported by the Nord Stream pipeline in early 2022, which declined to nothing by the end of the year. As a result monthly production numbers for the end of 2023, as Russia has successfully opened new markets for its fuel, primarily in Asia, have increased compared to the corresponding periods at the end of 2022, as the flows through the Nord Stream pipeline were gradually choked off. However the overall volume for the year so far remains down compared to 2022, when Europe was still aggressively purchasing natural gas exported through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

Regardless, Gazprom recently projected that Russia may become the third largest producer of liquified natural gas in the world, after the US and Qatar.