BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 2. Gas consumption in the Czech Republic in the first quarter of 2023 has decreased to the lowest level since 2001, TurkicWorld reports.

According to the press service of the Czech Energy Regulatory Office, this figure amounted to 2.52 million cubic meters, down by 14.4 percent on an annual basis.

The press service also said that the volume of gas stored in state-owned underground facilities was 1.69 million cubic meters as of the first quarter of this year, which is almost four times more than in the same period of 2022.

Czech businesses and households started saving on gas costs back in 2021. The decrease in gas consumption amounted to a record 28.5 percent compared to the indicators of the first quarter of the pre-crisis 2021 and the first quarter of this year.

In 2022, total gas consumption in the Czech Republic was the lowest in eight years. The country used 7.5 billion cubic meters of gas, which is 20 percent less than in 2021.

As Czech media reported in April, in the first quarter of 2023, the Czech Republic for the first time completely dispensed with gas supplies from Russia, replacing it with Norwegian gas and liquefied gas delivered by sea from terminals in the Netherlands and Belgium.