Gloom and doom has been the dominant mood on international gas markets for a while now, and the latest news from Russia is likely to add fuel to the pessimism: Gazprom has updated its 2016 budget, increasing the total spending planned for the year by just US$170 million ( 11 billion rubles ). This is a meager 1.3-percent rise on the budget approved in December 2015, in contrast to an upward revision of 27 percent for the company’s 2014 budget, and an almost 1.5-fold increase for the 2013 budget. Gazprom has a tradition of revising its budget for the current year in the fall. All indications are that those happy times of 2013 and 2014 are long gone. Gas is cheap, and it’s likely to continue to be cheap in the observable future. In response, Gazprom is tightening its belt. The total spending for 2016 is set at US$13.56 […]