Russian natural gas giant Gazprom Tuesday lowered its production outlook through to 2015 and indicated that it had no immediate plans to start up the vast Shtokman field. The company said in a statement that it expected annual production to rise to 570 to 580 billion cubic metres by 2015.
Gazprom chief Alexei Miller had in 2008 predicted that production would rise to 610 to 615 billion cubic metres by that stage and there was no formal explanation for the forecast revision. A company spokeswoman said by telephone that certain revisions were forced by "the financial crisis and other factors" but provided no other details. The world's largest gas company's output reached 460 billion cubic metres in 2009 amid a drop in a European demand caused by the world financial crisis.